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Nylak —
Cougar on Snowy Ledge
Published: 2005-10-18 00:53:27 +0000 UTC; Views: 9460; Favourites: 337; Downloads: 2418
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Description
My christmas/winter holiday card for this year! Yay! I decided not to procrastinate this year. Go me.If you don't know me, then you don't know that I design and paint a christmas card for my family to send out each year; this is my 6th or so year doing so.
Anyhow. A cougar. Looking over a ledge. I think I saw a photograph that I based it off of; I painted this off a coloured pencil sketch I made some time back. And yes; this picture is freakishly small in reality. The cougar's face is about the size of my thumbnail. Talk about painstaking. Hence the lack of detail I usually pore over in most of my tempera paintings.
Done in tempera paint on 5"x7" pastel paper. Clocked at 7 hours.
EDIT
...Snap. A DD? How random is this? o___o; No, I'm serious, this is really weird. This painting isn't that great. >__>; Uhm. Thank you? XD;
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Comments: 64
o gee this is so realistic . i guess it took some time. def a fav!
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this is amazing i love it (L)
If i saw this in the wild it would take my breath away..
Your picture brings that to life for me ;')
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Hi, I found this work amazing and it is featured in my journal [link]
Please let me know asap if you do no wish it to be displayed.
Happy new year
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sorry, it's [link]
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sorry, it's [link]
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yeah I agree that the cougar anatomy could be better. But that background with the greenish blue & the tree limbs & snow, thats just killer! I could stare at that all day...I think it makes up for anything else that might be wrong with the peice. It still beats anything Id do by a mile!
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Wonderful landscape and a beautiful expression on the cougars face,makes him see sorrowful almost
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I didn't know people still worked in tempera!
Is it still made out of egg yoke?
Did you make it yourself?
Did you buy it?
Is your painting done in journatas? Well, I guess it wouldn't have been because you said that the whole project took seven hours so journatas don't apply.
You don't actually have to answer these random questions. I was just surprised too see the word tempera.
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Sorry, I just finished Art History 102 at my university and I had just wrote the final a couple days before so I had obscure art facts floating around my head.
Here is some basic stuff about the tempera that I learned about:
Tempera was originally made from egg yolk and suspended colour pigments.
It was the traditional medium in Europe until the Flemish invented oil paints around 1500.
Tempera was used in both fresco and paintings, but in neither could you get great detail because tempera dries so fast.
In order to do a buon fresco first you sand down the wall you are going to paint, draw the outlines of whatever the fresco is about on a sheet of tracing paper and poke little holes into the lines of the outline, cover the wall you will be working on in fine plaster (it has a special name but I foget it right now), arrange the tracing paper as you want it, force through the little holes on the tracing paper loose pigment so you can see the outline of what you will be drawing (this is called the sinopia), then it's a race against the clock because you can only paint as long as the plaster is wet. All detail must be worked out in advance because you can't paint over buon fresco without it looking funny.
Buon fresco is done with tempera on wet plaster and was preferable because it therefore because part of the wall and didn't flake off.
"Bad" fresco is tempera that is painted onto the wall and didn't last very long.
Journata, or giornata, translates roughly to "a days work". In other words this is how much the artist can get done before the plaster dries or in one day = "jour".
Some works of tempera that I can think of off the top of my head are the Arena Chapel in Mantua, Michelangelo's Last Judgement (I think), and Leornado's Last Supper. (The Arena Chapel is the only one I know for sure the rest I'm not even sure if I have the right artists, I've been studying all day for an unrelated test)
That is all I can really think of right now. You could just Google alot of this and get a better understanding than what I have tried to impart here. I do hope it was helpful never the less.
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...Wow. Egg yolks? XD
Dude, I totally buy mine. >___>; I had no idea it EVER was made of egg yolks. XD It's completely water-and-chalk based, the stuff I use. It's cheapass stuff, to be sure, but I love it like none other.
And...I have no idea what journatas means. *twitch* >.>;
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You might not think it's all that great but I've never met anyone that was this good with tempra paints. It's beautiful, you should sell xmas cards most definately
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You might not think it's all that great but I've never met anyone that was this good with tempra paints. It's beautiful, you should sell xmas cards most definately
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Um, personally after looking through your gallery I'm confused as to why they chose this particular one for a DD. It's nice and all -- definitely beyond my skill -- but compared to a lot of your other works it's really not that great. Please don't take this as a negative comment, I just don't think this particular piece was the best representation of your skill.
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That's an understandable view point, if you haven't had experience working with tempera paints.
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Excellent. An artist who actually deserves a DD! Never thought I'd see one again. Lovely work, so keep it coming.
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That's really awesome I love Mountain Lions, keep up the great work ^_^
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That is an amzingly well done picture, way to go!
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wow... for being so small you did an amazing job! oh and congrats on the DD
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i really like it a lot
except the snow on the fur seems a little out of place
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Haha... I cant believe you can see so many things wrong with it. I still think its beautiful
The snow is just so nicely done
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the cougar looks more like a small bear than a cougar... however, the rest of the painting is extremely good... the detail of the snow is impressive and i like the depth of the painting. and im even more impressed by the fact you used tempera, which is like my arch enemy of paint.... i HATE using tempera with a passion, i think my last painting with tempera was 3 years ago or so...
anyways, its a good painting, dont beat yourself up on it.
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sad looking, is it beacouse there no eating meat on christmas?
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i love the scenery, but i feel like the cougar could have been excuted better. great job though. i suck at paints. great job on the dd!
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I knoooow. e__e The friggin cougar pains me. I have no idea what I was thinking. XD But thankoo for the comment. >__>;;
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heh, at least you can paint. i paint more badly than a kindergartener 
it's beautiful scenery.
and heh, commenting is fun!
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The colours are so prettyful and what a cute cougar.
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You did a great job with this! The coloring of the cougar is fantastic, and the surrounding trees and snow really bring him out and give a lovely setting. It's great to see something like this done in real media! Great job!
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Nice job on the snow and leaves! Overall well done! ^_^
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Gorgeous... I don't know what else to say. I can only hope that someday my painting skills will be up to par with this. Amazing!!!
Wolfy
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He looks... sad to me... and you're right, this isn't that good of a painting... and I mean that in the best way possible. The colors are nice, the background is beautiful, and I love what you did with the snow. But the cougar... some work could be done. It just looks... strange...
Meh, but that's just one person's opinion, clearly a hellofalot more people think its beautiful
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I completely agree. e___e This is definitely one of my weakest tempera paintings that I've done in the past year, and I've been in pain all day because I have to keep looking at it and seeing over and over again what's wrong with it. XD
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the painting is beautiful! but I do see some things that catch my eye
mainly, the courgar's legs look a bit, stocky, or too short. But if you could improve that fault if you make another picture of a courgar, I'm sure it'll be beautiful ^^
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I find it hard to see how people can paint such brilliant pictures, what tools do you use? Great work, keep it up!
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Sweet, Nylak. XD And I even have a free print. >D
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the painting may not be the best (like you said), when you keep the "rules of realism" in mind... But I think it has got a great style
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