What Does A Deer Dream Of?

I had this idea to create a painting featuring a deer girl character and needed something to fill the open area over her shoulder. I put out a Facebook poll and got lots of fun answers like: clover, butterflies, romping in the sun, ancient elk, bejewling their antlers, several eating-the-flowers-in-my-garden references, and few deer-hunts-people suggestions, including a twist on the old "Hunters Stew"! But in the end, I decided that my cloven-hoofed girl was dreaming about a pair of pink Mary Jane pumps. Sometimes we want what we cannot have!

I began by creating a two-toned sky using a funky number stencil. I figured she'd be dreaming about numerous pairs of fun shoes.

I created the impression of flowers, grass (and clover) by using layers and layers and layers of all shades of green paint, applied with foam stamps from Claudine Hellmuth's Studio collection (my all-time favorites!).

Then I transferred my image onto the completed background. I confess that many times I'm still not brave enough to draw directly on the canvas. I don't want to mess it up! This method suits me just fine though, and now I have a template to create lots and lots of deer, dreaming of lots and lots of other stuff.

A layer of white insures that whatever cheap acrylics I paint over top will keep their color integrity without a lot of wrestling with tons and tons of layers.

The faces always intimidate me and I end up working on them somewhere in the middle of my painting process. She was the first girl I did in this style with her eyes closed and it really came out very dreamy looking. Hooray!

My favorite shoes are Mary Jane's and they make an interesting-looking illustration as well. Making them obnoxiously pink... well, I couldn't resist!

A few swirls of pink in the flowers to pull it all together and a few dots of white on her body to create more texture and the painting is complete. I'm totally in love with her. And hey... if I were a cloven-hoof girl, I'd be dreaming of high heel shoes too. And maybe a few bucks. Oh, deer!