For this painting I used self-prepared smooth deep charcoal matboard coated with my favorite transparent pastel ground, Golden Acrylic Ground for Pastels, so that I would start with a dark background.

I painted it without any guidelines, just hitting the surface with my pastels and letting it work out. And I mean literally hitting the board with pastels, as I did when I painted Summer Sunset, Robinson Run, wanting to keep myself from falling into the details, using the edges of my pastels to shape the leaves with just a quick tap or swash and moving on.

This curious fawn was part of my back yard, front yard, side yard, he was all over the place in 2016, much to the consternation of his stern mother, who would wait around a corner or in the shadows and stamp her hooves as he wandered here and there, looked in my windows, tasted this or that. Of course, I practically followed him around—inside— with my camera and got many photos that I knew I’d want to paint.

This was my first choice, and my favorite of them all. My yard slopes down from street level to basement level along the side yards. I was up in my house, looking out my side window, quietly watching the fawn amble along the path from the back yard to the driveway, on the north side of the house, the sun to the south as the house cast a shadow. The big wild black cherry was still there, creating a dense shadow on the left. The July day was hot and sunny as you can see in the sunny glare on the leaves at the top, but the cool north light reflected down onto the upturned leaves of my groundcovers creating an all-over spattered pattern that would have been a perfect camouflage for the fawn, but for all the cool and warm light coming in at angles and reflecting all around, highlighting his warm tones.

I photographed him as he walked, but this was my favorite posture, paused, head turned in interest, huge ears turned forward, the clear lines of his spots running down along his body. I’m so glad I finally had the chance to paint him.

Without the tree, that area of the side yard is in nearly full sun and is quite different now, but I loved looking and walking in this little area. I miss it, and it’s actually a joy to preserve it in this painting.

I began this painting on day 3, but finished it on day 5 of my painting challenge. See other paintings in this and other painting challenges on the page Creative Challenges.

Click here to register for your account to order your free print. When I receive your registration I’ll send you an email with information on how to order.

You can also find this painting in my Wildlife Gallery.

Get a print of this artwork

Register for an account and get a free matted print

The featured artwork also becomes one of the New Member Gifts for the month it’s featured as well, so if you’ve been waiting to register for an account, here’s another good reason. This New Member print is a signed digital print of my painting “Social Isolation” made in archival inks on Epson Velvet paper. This print is 8 x 11 and matted with a pure white mat to fit an 11 x 14 frame.

Click here to register for your account to order your free print. When I receive your registration I’ll send you an email with information on how to order.

OR PURCHASE THE ORIGINAL OR A PRINT

“Social Isolation”, pastel, 7 x 9, on pastello pastel paper. The original will be framed and I will also make prints and canvases. Please visit the product post here.

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This month’s desktop calendar

Wallpaper calendars are free to download. You’ll find them below along with instructions.

If these sizes don’t work for your device, or if you have problems, please let me know. Often I can troubleshoot the reason an image won’t download or won’t load on your device, but if I just can’t figure it out I can just email it to you and hope that works.

How to download and use your desktop calendar

1. Click on one of the images below that matches the dimensions of your monitor to open the image in a new page.
2. For desktop computers and laptops, right-click on that image and on a desktop computer choose “save as desktop wallpaper” or “save as background” or whichever option your operating system gives you to be able to do this. You may also simply save it to your hard drive and set it as your background from there.
3. For mobile devices, press on the image to bring up a menu and choose “open in new window”. Go to that window and press until a menu appears and choose as “set as wallpaper” or “set as lock screen” or whatever you’d like—this is slightly different on all devices.

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Horizontal and HD monitors and screens

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Square monitors and screens

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Small Mobile Devices and Tablets

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Cell Phones and Smartphones

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Take a look at other featured artwork and desktop calendar posts.

Each month I feature a piece of artwork or a photo from the archives to the present day, tell its story, and set it up as a free downloadable desktop calendar for just about every electronic device available.

Other items with the same art or design To find all items on this site with the same art or design, use the search box for the name of the artwork and you'll find all that's available.

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© 2022 | www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit “purchasing” for availability and terms.