Elk on a flower bed

I can't elk it, I'm so excited about this painting 👀

It's the first time I've attempted drawing an animal with a nature foreground and I think it turned out pretty ok!

I certainly wasn't expecting it to. I mean, landscapes are tough for me and when I saw this photo, I immediately thought, uh oh, the flowers and leaves in the foreground are going to be trouble. But I was captivated by the photo - that majestic elk on a bed of flowers? I couldn't resist. So I decided to grab the elk by its antlers 🙄 and give it a shot.

Photo: Pixabay

I used brown Pastelmat, I started with green Panpastels for the background and right off the bat, I already felt like I didn't know what I was doing.

I added some soft pastels but once again, I didn't know how to get that illusion of blurred out foliage. It just looked like smudgy green patches to me.

After a few rounds of adjustments (and making everything super muddy), I realised that perhaps the contrast isn't enough, so I deepened the dark green. That's when it started looking better.

 

Since the elk has very fine details to draw, like the antlers, I decided to use my NuPastels for the animal instead of the usual softer pastels. For some reason, I can paint wood. Foliage, not so much but wood? Yes.

Then I started on the elk's face and ran into some problems. I had started out making it mauve, but didn't like the effect. It made the elk look like it had conjunctivitis. So I tissued off the face and started again (this photo was after I'd rubbed off the pinks).

I decided to go blue instead. I think it's better though I'm starting to get a feeling of deja blue 🤨

I filled in the rest of the body and I'll be honest, I was still having doubts at this point. I asked my daughter if it looked like the elk was wearing a jacket. (She said no).

I'd been putting off the foreground with the bed of flowers because that was the part I was most unsure about. But once I was done with the elk, I had no more excuses. I painted in a layer of PanPastels to get the bright underlayer I love, and realised that I like the effect.

So I let some of that colour show through, and used soft pastel sticks to paint in a blur background, before dotting in flowers in sharper focus in the foreground. Didn't know what to do with the green patches in front, so kept them out of focus, which turned out to be a great decision.

And here it is 🥰 I give it 5 stars on Yelk.

By the way, I finally got on Instagram! Come follow me there where I'll post all my paintings.