Cow Moose Painting Revisited

After too many lonely months of being stored unfinished in my "studio", I decided to tackle this larger moose painting again in the hopes of completing it for my upcoming show next weekend. I've had many ups and downs with this piece mainly because it is made up, in part, of several different reference photos as well as my imagination.

First thing I did was to remove a bunch of branches with yellow leaves near the top left corner, just above the smaller moose's back. After much contemplation and rethinking, I decided it was just too distracting and competed with the main subjects. Such is the beauty of pastel...a few swipes of base color to hide the mess and I'm free to repaint a new forest!

I still have a few remaining touches but it should be framed and hanging by the end of the week!

Now, to find a title...

Busy summer and now cow moose

Now that summer finally arrived in our neck of the woods, we've been camping and fishing to our heart's content. I took several opportunities to photograph many subjects; some of which I anticipate drawing or painting in the future.


After putting this painting on the back burner for a few months, I've taken up the courage to work on it again. I was not pleased with the background and shrubbery and so re-worked on those areas. Here's what I've done so far:
I still have a bit of work left to do on one of the cows...I've vowed not to start another painting until I finish this one so I better get cracking!!

American Elk painting-on the easel

I've been working on the background and started adding more fur detail to the second cow moose. The background detail is proving to take just as long as the moose!

View the complete progress of this wildlife painting on the works in progress page of my website here: http://www.colettetheriault.com/workinprogres.php

Cow moose painting work in progress

Here's a bit more of the pastel painting of the two cow moose in fall.