This painting has received so many comments from visitors to my traveling exhibition that I thought I'd give you my own comments about it. At first glance it may seem that, like most of my paintings, I have chosen the colors based purely on the mood or time of day I was aiming to portray. However many people are surprised to learn that in this painting I actually stuck fairly closely to the colors I saw at the time. This was a scene from the Dete Valley not far from the Painted Dog Conservation project offices, just outside Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. It was September, very dry and the sun was setting behind the elephants. They had kicked up huge amounts of dust & had been turned into wonderful silhouettes, while the trees behind them were nearly obscured by the dust. This piece is also unusual for me because I based the painting on a sketch completed at the time. Normally I treat painting and sketching as two completely different disciplines with different aims. Sketching is like a life-drawing class whereas painting is creating a piece of artwork, so my painting ideas are not usually taken from my sketchbooks. But this seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. I hope you enjoy "Elephant Dust".

Alison

www.NichollsWildlifeArt.com

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