This coyote was one I came upon during a “photo safari” I did one of the days while an Artist in Residence at the Grand Canyon National Park.  I’m from Prescott, so I see coyotes all the time, but NEVER have I seen one this big and healthy!  He came within 30 feet of me and just stood there posing as if he knew exactaly what I wanted, then trotted back off into the forest.   I wanted to paint him a little different than most of my animals so I experimented with “framing” him in rock.  It was a cool experiment.  First I marked the gesso board…it needed to be a firm surface…with my “mat”.  Then I took thick gesso and chunked it on the mat part of the painting.  When that was dry, I took acrylic paints, tourquoise, black and copper and a few other colors and made odd shaped stripes or veins.  Once that was done I started the actual oil painting.   My objective was to make the mat look and feel like rock, as if he were stepping out of a cave.  I think it worked!  This made me want to play a lot more painting “rocks”.

This painting is for sale.  You can go to the “comments” page and contact me directly.   Price= $880

The actual painting is 14″x18″ unframed and is custom framed with total measurements of 23.5 x 19.5