While I have many favorite animals, and often struggle to choose just one; it’s not uncommon for African Wild Dogs, also known as African Painted Dogs, to be that choice.

African Wild Dogs have been a long held favorite of mine since I was a child, and while I’ve had a revolving door of favorites for many other species, the African wild dog has never lost it’s place in my heart. This beautiful but fierceful creatures are some of nature’s most beautiful breathing abstract canvases!

When I first made my return to art after a hiatus, and attempted to branch out into a medium that I hadn’t had the opportunity to explore besides art class in high school, I wanted to approach not only a subject that I loved but attempt to represent it in as realistic of a form as I could at the time. For that I chose to try and paint my long time and beloved favorite animal ~ 💕

While there are many things that I would probably do drastically different, for having never painted fur textures at the time and choosing such a dynamically difficult subject when it comes to representing their fur patterns appropriately due to the large variety between individuals, I’m still very proud of this piece. It was also the first time that I really put a focus into throwing something (anything) into the background, although the initial intent was to do a full realistic piece with a realistic background - at the time I wasn’t at a stage where I could properly render backgrounds well, so instead I opted for a more “abstract” style background.