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The Story Behind Wary at the Wood’s Edge

Most mornings, my wife Terri walks near the house. Recently, as fall began, she came back with a photo of two deer standing at the edge of the woods. They weren’t running. They were just there, watching.

I liked the photo right away. The deer were alert but not panicked. The grass in front of them was that dry golden color you get in the fall, and the trees behind them still had a lot of orange and rust left in the leaves. Yet, the lingering summer drought that proceeded the fall was mostly the reason for the deep oranges and reds in the leaves on the trees.

I decided to paint it as a small color study, 10 by 10 inches, oil on canvas panel. I wanted to see if I could get the feeling of those two animals standing there, half in the open and half against the darker woods and capture the rich earthy tones of the yellows, oranges and reds in the photo. I think the color study was successful, and so I may decide to make it into a large painting of 36 x 36 size.

The hardest part was the deer themselves. They’re small in the painting, but they have to read clearly. If the ears or the angle of the head is off, the whole thing looks wrong. I kept going back to Terri’s photo and also to other references I’ve collected over the years. I wanted them to look wary without looking scared.

The background came easier but I was still challenged to subjugate it abstractly in a supportive way to the subject. I already knew how I wanted the light to fall on the grass and how dark I wanted the trunks and branches to get behind the deer. The values had to be right. And the contrast is what makes the animals stand out. Once the deer felt right, the rest of the painting settled in pretty quickly.

I titled it Wary at the Wood’s Edge because that’s exactly what it is. They’re not deep in the woods and they’re not out in the middle of the field. They’re right on the line, paying attention. Most of the wildlife I paint ends up in places like that—edges, clearings, the spots where you actually see them if you’re paying attention on a walk.

Terri’s photo is still on my phone. I look at it every so often when I’m working on something else. It reminds me that a lot of the paintings I care about start with something ordinary that someone else noticed first.

Wary at the Wood’s Edge is a 10 × 10 inch oil on canvas panel. You can see it here on the site if you’d like a closer look.