April 8 2022
It has been a good week this week in my studio. Steady progress. In the most basic form of the process, although it is a bit more than this, I like to think of three stages in painting my wildlife paintings. Blocking in with flat colour, modelling and then detailing. So this week I have spent modelling the impala to get them to the stage of colour and tone to better estimate the main subject being the elephant. The warthog are modelled too. The charging elephant I have worked on modelling and now detailing. The foreground I have toned in a bit darker to contrast with all of the grass that will be there later along with a few sticks or broken branches. I still have some flying oxpeckers to add to communicate the activity. All in all a good week. I hope you all enjoy the update and have a nice weekend.
April 22 2022
Time for another update. At last getting to the big bull elephant in this painting, he really has presence. They always do in person too. This brings back those special memories when keeping company with elephant in the African bush. For me personally such a precious time and no words can fully explain. I hope you enjoy getting lost in all the wrinkles as much as I do. To paint this certainly takes some perseverance, the results are just so rewarding. I look forward to the layers of dust, the reason the elephant behind the big bull is a bit lighter as he is emerging out of a cloud of dust. My best wishes to you all.
May 6 2022
Progress! Indeed there are a lot of wrinkles to paint here. I am beginning to see wrinkles when I close my eyes. I always find there is more colour on an elephant than you think as you can see in the palette of paint that I am using just for the elephant. I always find this fascinating and it varies so much. In this scene the light is that beautiful warm light of the African bush. As you can imagine it is quite a challenge to render the skin of an elephant realistically. A time consuming marathon and an enjoyable satisfying one too. My aim is aways to showcase their beauty, for me personally I think the detail does that. My best wishes to you all.
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