Finishing and Choosing the Title

For the leopard, I painted the spots first. The surrounding color was next and then I went back and touched up the spots. Putting in the "black" spots first helps me get a feeling of how the underlying muscle structure can be portrayed which then aids in the shading. With a leopard this small, it was inevitable that my background shading on the leopard’s body would cover the edges of the spots I had just painted. Hence, the spot do-over.

Sometimes I have a title and an idea for a piece years before I paint it. Other times the title will come to me during the painting process. And lastly, there are paintings, like this one, where I struggle for a title once the painting is completed. Yesterday afternoon it came to me. I was thinking of the fact that the painting is a silhouette. Serengeti Silhouette
Original Oil by Linda Besse
22.75" X 27"

Detail