‘On the Move ~ Lions,” copyright Susan A. Walton, S. A. Walton Studio, Hudson, Florida

A pride of lions on a mission.

I usually stick to North American wildlife because I am familiar with it, and more importantly, familiar with the plants and environment that goes with it, so this painting was a bit of a departure from my habits, or would be, if those habits hadn’t developed after this piece was painted.

This was actually an early exercise in painting and if memory serves, it was the result of binging on a lot of National Geographic magazines and an interesting documentary of lions living in the crater of an African volcano, and I did it around the time someone thoughtfully gifted me with a book of Canadian artist Robert Bateman’s work, in which he had a beautiful, airy composition of a female lion in warm colored grass, overlooking a slope.

While this was no match for his very different rendition of a lioness, it was an interesting piece of work for me. I wasn’t sure that my idea of grass would really look like that of Africa, since unlike Bateman, I had never been there; I was forced to concede that weakness and p1aint my scene anyway, which felt like being blindfolded while working.

I stopped short of depicting the lions as they look in the documentary of the lions of the crater, covered with ticks and flies.