New Colorful Deer Painting - Work in Progress

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my favorite artists is Julie Chapman because she can paint a brown animal without actually using any brown paint. For example, what color is a bison? Brown?
Now what color is Julie's bison here?


What colors do you see? I see pretty much every color of the rainbow. I see various shade of blue, red, orange, green, yellow, and purple. Almost no brown. But I'd bet if you asked most people, "What color is that bison?" they'd say brown. We know and recognize this bison as a brown animal despite the fact that there's almost no brown in that painting. I think Julie's an amazing artist for being able to pull that off so beautifully!

Inspired by Julie Chapman's colorful art, I'm attempting to use less brown, and more of other colors, in my painting. In keeping with my anti-brown-painting movement, I'm working on a little colorful practice painting of a deer using no pre-mixed brown. (Sorry Burnt Sienna! You don't get to play this time!) I'm using only the three primaries and white, and attempting not to mix any of these colors to the point of brown. This is more difficult than you'd think!

This is what I have so far.


I still haven't, obviously, mastered the color technique as Julie has. My little deer is still a lot more "brown" than Julie's bison. But, it's also a lot less brown than some of my other paintings so at least it's progress!

But, my deer painting's not done yet, so who knows. And, she's actually supposed to be a cute little fawn, so I'll add some spots as well as some other details as well as, hopefully, some more color.

Check back for the finished painting soon!