On My Easel

Although this picture shows a still unfinished painting, I must admit it is in a more advanced stage of completion. I should have showed the first couple of times I worked on this but it was not something I even wanted to show. I apologize and will definitely show the earlier stages of progress for my next new painting. I'm making great progress on the three current projects and sometimes stopping to take pictures (and remembering to take pictures) and then writing about then on my website is just taking time away from painting and the other writing projects I have going on.


When I showed Jim this painting, I always like to get his feedback on my works in progress, he made a comment about the background that I had just spent the day working on. He commented that it looked like the elk were standing on a hill. That's exactly right, I told him. I decided to call it Elk Couple on a Hill so that people wouldn't think the elk had a made-up back ground behind them instead of seeing mountains and sky behind them. This picture was taken while Jim and I were walking along the trails around Mammoth Springs in Yellowstone. We didn't even see them they stood there so quietly as we walked by. Then I saw a couple of elk a little off from us and then as I looked around I saw these two standing up hill from us. Snap, snap, I got several pictures and then so as not to upset them, we walked on.


I added dioxazene purple with sap green to create the scrub growing on the side of the hill. The elk are standing with one slightly below the other so you can see the legs of the one in back but I decided to have the back legs of the one in front go off the page. I think it gives it more of the element of catching them in the middle of a walk along the hilly terrain that they travel on.

I need to let this painting dry for a few days now and then I'll be focusing more on the elk themselves next.