It started with the decision to use the textured side of the board instead of the smooth side. I only had fat brushes, so I couldn’t do fine fine details. This was definitely frustrating at first. But, then I figured out all the things I could do with it. Because I couldn’t do all that fine detail I had been relying on before, I was forced to get only the essence of each animal. And I was forced to use the rough texture of the board to convey what I needed to convey: scales on a trout, speckled fur on the wolf that doubled as feathers on a grackle, as well as feathers for a night hawk. The textured was also used to make the nose look shiny and wet. If the board was smooth, I could never have done all those things, or it would have been harder.
Look closely and it is just a bunch of blobs and lines of paint, but don’t be fooled. Every line and every mark has a purpose. It’s not just a wolf. It’s not just forest animals hidden in a wolf. It’s both. If you tug on one thing in the forest or anywhere really, you tug on all the other things one by one. And it’s incredible how fast the one change you make can affect everything. This is the way it is in my painting. Everything is connected to the wolf. The wolf’s eye is like a waterhole or a spring. So, if you take away the wolf, you take away the river and you take away the turtle and the otter and the fish. And you take away the loon to because the loon relies on the water. The deer relies on the wolf too. When the wolf is gone, a deer that is sick will still be around to take up food and might get other deer sick and will still be suffering. This way the wolf helps keep the deer stronger. As the deer get stronger the wolf must get stronger as well. Everything is in balance. But, this balance is easily tipped.
LF
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