Leeds Olympic Lion, coloured in many shades of red, white and blue to commemorate all the Leeds based athletes and swimmers who brought back medals from the Rio Olympics, 2016.  Mick Burton single continuous line drawing with colour sequence.

I did a demonstration at Farsley Art Group on 12 July 2016 and the continuous line drawing I used as an example was the basis for the above painting. The Group showed a lot of interest and produced many fine attempts at continuous line during my workshop. The club kindly featured me on their website, showing some of my drawings as well as work by members.  I gave them a free hand to put their own stamp on their continuous lines so we had some great variations.

Joan, my partner, watched many swimming and diving events on the TV during the Olympics broadcasts.  She worked at the Leeds International Pool and the new John Charles Centre, in various swimming organising roles, before she retired in 2012 and was delighted with the results of the Leeds members of the Great Britain team and their coaches.

As the athletes all had the red, white and blue lion on their track suits I felt I had to colour my Lion in a range of similar colours and call it the Leeds Olympic Lion.  The painting will be exhibited in the Stainbeck Arts Club Annual Exhibition on Saturday 3 September 2016.  The exhibition is part of the Chapel Allerton Arts Festival taking place in north Leeds this week.

Joan’s daughter, Helen Frank, represented Great Britain in the 100 metres breast stroke in the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and was one of five swimmers from Leeds.  Adrian Moorhouse won a swimming gold medal, in the 100 metres breastroke, in 1988.  A gold by a British swimmer was not achieved again by a  British swimmer until 2016.

Helen brought back a commemorative plate from Seoul, which is part of Joan’s collection of Olympic Plates.