20140429 - Deer

Today's painting is an autumn scene. I happened across a delightful wall paper scene of four deer at the edge of a glade beside an autumn forest. I wish I could give credit to the original photographer that took the picture of the deer. Unfortunately these free wall paper sites probably lifted the picture without giving credit or funding to the original artist. I would normally not use such a site or photograph, but it presented two unique challenges.

First, the photograph included four deer. While I've been tackling harder and harder subjects, I have not jumped into painting animals (other than the birds). So, painting for deer was a big new challenge for me.

Second, painting a misty forest scene requires several different techniques. One is that you need to paint an overall wash of the background color. Then you need to add and then immediately dab away trees and limbs in the background.

As you can see, I took the original photograph and cropped it to just the central image. This felt more interesting. Additionally, when working in watercolor, it is sometimes important to get the main object in the painting large enough to paint well. Smaller and it would be much more difficult for me to get the detail of the deer correct.

I did the deer and trees with pen & ink, using Noodler's Ink Polar Brown ink.

Those challenges made this scene an interesting lesson. I'm fairly pleased with my rendition of the original photograph. It's a warm, autumn scene.

What could be better? Well, the foreground is too dark / blue. It should be warmer (redder) and lighter in color. A yellow green would have been a better choice. I should have put more branches / limbs / twigs into the painting. Next time I try something like this I will try to use the ink for the small detailed limbs / twigs. That might feel better and attain the look that I want to see.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this painting. It was a fun learning process.