My Anti-Brown Movement

I have decided many of my paintings from the past just have way too much brown in them. It makes sense. I paint brown animals in brown dirt with brown tree trunks behind them. It should be mostly brown, right?

No.

One of my favorite artists is Julie Chapman. She can paint a totally brown animal without using any brown and, yet, we still see it as brown. I think that's brilliant! I'm not quite sure how she does it. But rather than jump in too deep and try to paint brown without painting brown, I figured I'd start by just painting things that aren't brown, like green grass and blue sky. That's a good start, right?

Anyway, here's something I'm working on that's not all brown. It's a meadow scene with deer, reminiscent of Bambi's mother trying to coax Bambi out onto the meadow for the first time.


So far I only have the grassy meadow and misty morning sunshine. Here's a quick Photoshop mock-up of where the deer would be. As you can see here, we have a doe and two little fawns. One is bold and ventures out onto the meadow with its mother. The other is a little timid and needs some coaxing.


I think it will be a cute scene. But the point I'm actually trying to make here is that I'm trying to avoid an all-brown scene. The background is mostly blue and green. The deer, of course, are brown animals. But I'm going to try to avoid painting them with just brown. Perhaps a more golden hue will contrast nicely against the blue-green background. We shall see. Stay tuned!