Forest Deer Painting

This is an original acrylic painting on stretched canvas. My style involves covering the entire surface, in this case with warm colour, and building up the image with many layers of thin glaze. The result is a painting which, when properly lit, will reflect the light through the layers to reproduce the warm atmospheric glow of the morning. The forest is on a hill behind our house, in South Bohemia, where I live and paint. I was walking with my dog and the deer heard our footsteps. I took photos and sketched the composition and returned to my studio to start the painting that day. Acrylics dry much faster than oils and this allows me to build up many thin layers over a few days. Masters, such as Turner, used similar techniques with gouache and oils but these took many weeks or months to complete.