Beautiful image Carol!!

Carol, this is another truly exceptional presentation. So many times upon visiting your gallery I'm left utterly speechless when confronted with the beauty of you're art. This is one of those times as I can't recall seeing a more lovely and detailed painting.

Another gorgeous painting!!!! I love what you did with his fur.

Stunning!

As always Carol a beautiful, beautiful piece of art. xx

Beautiful!

Absolutely beautiful! Gorgeous work!

Superb imagery!!!

Amazing art work. God bless.

Stunning!!!

How did I miss this fellow, when I saw the baby rainbow gir? I love this!!

light within is reflecting without....a favorite sweet one

Superb image! great talent and wonderful fantasy ^_^

I love dave's comment (magnus073). Ditto. Carol, I'm gonna skip a bit, this session, only because I want to get a variety of the many types of luscious images you've posted. I think sometimes I should leave a bunch of shorter comments, so I can comment on everything. But I prefer sitting with works in general; and with your work, it almost calls me to. So I'll do all I can now, and come back for another session soon. Now to this image... When I first saw this, I was struck by an almost photographic sensibility, in that you cut the lion off at the shoulder blades, with a little torso behind. I'm sure you've done that before, but his highly frontal position with nothing around him, nothing to cut him off naturally, is unusual in your gallery, at least as I recall. It's the striking 'suddenness' that hits me, and that feels photographic. The effect is: The lion suddenly 'hits' us in all his huge presence. And his face---which would be one of the first things we'd look for---is dwarfed by his huge mane and those massive shoulders. Not to mention the high-lighting in his uppermost hairs (in the mane). That too is photographic. So his face is almost overwhelmed by his massivity, which feels very true to lions overall. This lion 'stepped into' this image, he literally walked into it when we weren't looking, and his presence feels like a magnificent surprise---and yet he, himself, is at utter peace. Peace surprising us. (The author of the Hebrew Isaiah wrote of a messenger "calling out 'Peace'". He doesn't whisper it or just let it 'happen': He calls it out, as if appeared in front of us, and he wants everyone to know that it's arrived. "How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of the messenger who cries out 'Peace'..." One doesn't have to be religious, or Judeo-Christian to feel the impact of lines like that.) Your lighting is quite varied---the mane has many layers of light and dark, golds and reds, ambers and yellows---this is a very active mane, visually; and it shows the intense activity in your inner eye, to create such variegation in a 'simple clump of hair'. (The ultra light of the uppermost mane, of course, emphasizes that in the extreme.) And his eyes---small in comparison to his mass---show his concentration but also ease. Not an easy combo to capture (intense concentration and ease), but I feel both here, in harmony with each other. Another essence of these magnificent cats... And...the point of contact between his tongue and the water seems electrified. The light where he touches, and the way it radiates out a bit, is a clear choice of your heart---it's possible but not likely that light could fall that way, as it would be shadowed in several places by that massive head! By lighting the water that way, you've electrified the primal contact of Beast with Sustenance, and I really love that. And the water, in general, is glass-like and beautiful. With deep reddish browns and yellows. The rest of the image is more of your deep Serengeti backdrop, with those luscious deep reds and reddish browns, and ambers and peach-tinged hues. A couple of giraffes against a distant lone tree, and one of your massive suns. What's striking about these plains pieces is how you make essentially sparse landscapes so rich. They're desolate, but very rich. In your pieces filled floral detail or your undulating skies, etc, the richness calls out at every step. But here, it oozes from inside the sands themselves. The whole place feels like it has a prehistoric richness encased in the sands, and it just radiates it. Beautiful, stark, imposing, even slightly shattering---in the sense that the lion shatters our 'space', while he remains wholly at ease---and your color and light is all of a family, a very rich family. It's like you're channeling an inner Africa in these pieces. Don't know if you've been there (I haven't), but it feels as if there's an Africa in your soul, and that Africa, in turn, comes from an Africa deep within the continent's core. A melding of two sources...Beautiful, plaintive and peaceful. Peace within a fierce beast's mane...