Oh Deer!

If you've joined me on Facebook, then you'll know that I've been working on a buck silhouette. 

I love deer. 

I think they're so peaceful, majestic, and strong. 

Here is the first stage of the painting. It's fairly large: 24" x 30" (or so).

I pasted some book pages down using acrylic medium, smeared different shades of brown around, and them finished with a thick layer of more acrylic medium with some stencils. 

Then I searched the internets for a buck head shape that I really liked. 

I had a large piece of packing paper (the kind that you get when you buy a dish and they wrap it for you.)

I drew the buck's silhouette while looking at the image on my phone. You can see by all of the pencil marks that my drawing wasn't perfect the first time, and I had to adjust the lines. I also shaved a little too much off the bottom and the outer edges of the antlers, so I added in a little more paper for that part. 

No big whoop. It's just a guideline. 

I used removable double-sided tape to adhere my page to the canvas and then mixed up a dark brown to paint all around the edges. 

When I lifted the paper, this is what I had. Kind of awesome :)

Since my background had some brown hues that were not so different from the dark that I had used to outline (see up at the top left?), I decided to highlight the inner edges of the deer with a creamy light brown. 

I mixed in some acrylic medium so that it wouldn't be too opaque. 

The result is pretty awesome. 

I can still make out the book page texture from my initial background, and the edge of the silhouette is crisp and clean. 

I'm going to paint a rich black around the edges of the canvas itself (it's a 2" deep canvas, a real showpiece!) and then sell it. 

Any tips on shipping artwork would be very welcome! I've only ever sent small pieces and journals!