Commissioned painting of a brindle timber wolf on a naturally shed moose antler by Western Canadian artist Alexandra Verboom Fritz. This painting features a brindle coloured timber wolf with its paw raised as it walks on an ice covered lake.
Artist’s Statement: This piece was commissioned by an old coworker and was uniquely challenging for me as the colours requested by the buyer did not match the photo reference I had. I had a photo reference that I wanted to use of a white timber wolf that I had taken at a wildlife park. I loved the wolf’s body position in the photo; he had been casually walking when something caught his ear and he stopped suddenly with foot raised mid stride. But Nicole, the buyer, wanted the wolf’s hide colour to match a real wolf’s hide that had recently been given to her. It was very challenging to try to imagine how the different colour tones would line up on a real wolf compared to the photo of the hide. The light and shadows where also challenging to imagine, but eventually the piece came together and the colours worked themselves out.
The moose antler made for another challenge as it was quite weathered and the colour had been distorted in many areas. I didn’t want to apply a dark stain to cover the distortion as I have with other pieces, because I liked the natural bone colour of the antler for the background of this piece. So instead of staining it, I mixed acrylic paints to try to match the colour of the antler as close as possible and painted the entire thing. Can you tell that the antler was painted?
For more information about commissioning a painting similar to “Nicole’s Wolf” please contact the artist Alexandra Verboom Fritz at averboompainting@gmail.com
