Mountain Lion Water Color

I completed this painting in one day, on 30NOV2025.

A friend from AT&T in Austin visited me in Colorado. He bought me an expensive set of Windsor-Newton watercolor paints and 140lb watercolor paper. I have never painted a watercolor. This is my first. My wife, Sandy, does beautiful watercolors. She guided me on how to do it. Any mistakes are mine.

I enjoy painting from reference photographs. Several years ago, I experimented with creating a painting style in a digital app, but I gave up. My goal was to create a reusable digital style that I could apply to any photograph, and get a reference photo with my personal painting style as a result. However, I didn't have the requisite app skills or knowledge. Since then, LLMs (Large Language Models) have been developed. So, I used chatGPT to apply a painting style to a photograph.

• I saved the ChatGPT-generated image as a PNG file. 

• To enlarge the image, paste it into Excel and then print it at the required size (~11x14 inches). The print area is set to the image.

• The image is printed on multiple pages with a border and excess paper. I cut off the excess paper using a metal straight edge and X-acto knife.

• I aligned the cut edges and taped the printed pieces together using see-through Scotch tape.

• The resulting image wasn't exactly what I wanted. So, I did the following:

  • I "erased" parts of the drawing using white acrylic gesso and a fine-point paintbrush

  • The watercolor has rough sketch lines that match the African lion. Instead of the AI-generated mountain lion.

    • I modified the sketch lines using a pencil until they matched a mountain lion. 

  • Some lion features were merged with the mountain lion. For example, the whites in the mountain lion are not white enough. Instead of a fluffy white neck, the generated image has the flowing lines of a lion's mane. 

    • I also changed the width of the mountain lion's neck in the final painting.

  • I brightened the eyes' highlights. The bright points of light make the mountain lion look more alive.

  • The result is on the left.

• The printed image above was taped to a sunlit window. Next, a sheet of 16x20-inch, 140lb watercolor paper was taped on top

• The underlying image was traced on the watercolor paper using a MozArt mechanical pencil. Mechanical pencils don't need to be sharpened. So, drawing or tracing goes much faster.

  • I spent much of my childhood drawing pen-and-ink animals. So, I have the skills to sketch it, but my drawing is too slow and methodical. Drawing would have taken a day or two. Tracing makes the process quicker. Tracing took less than 30 minutes.

• The traced lines on watercolor paper are on the left.

• I taped watercolor paper with the image to an MDF board.

• I like the drips and splotches (dots or splatters) near the bottom of the lion watercolor. The splotches disappeared when printed. I added the splotchess back to the drawing and added some additional drips and splotchess.

• I added several lines that I missed while tracing. 

• It was challenging to draw smooth curves against a vertical window. So, I smotthed out some lines.

• The darker lines were lightened by gently erasing with a Faber-Castell Kneadable Eraser.