Colorful Paintings of the Toy Elephant

Below are three very colorful and lively Toy Elephant Acrylic Paintings painted in 2015. These canvas paintings were inspired by my Daily Drawing Project in 2015, when I drew the Toy Elephant from life every day for over 40 days in a row. 

Toy Elephant Medium 3 (Green), Acrylic on Canvas, 16" x 20", 2015

An unexpected benefit of daily drawing: sketching daily inspired me to find time to start painting the Toy Elephant. Although I moved on to drawing other toys, I created a painting series of the Toy Elephant. I started off this art series painting very small on 4" x 4" gessobord panels.

Then I  moved on to the medium size of these three paintings: 16" x 20" canvas. I paint the Toy Elephant in two ways:

 Toy Elephant Medium 1 (Orange), Acrylic on Canvas, 16" x 20", 2015

1. from life, setting up the large stuffed animal in different positions around my studio; and

2. from my daily drawings of the stuffed animal as source material for painting.

When working from life, I set the elephant to be positioned seated in a bar stool.  When working with the daily drawings, I used the drawings to help me choose the composition, line, and tone for the paintings. I came up with different color combinations for each artwork, and change the colors as I painted.

The paintings shown here are all 16" x 20" in size and made with acrylic paint on canvas. A few paintings and drawings from this Toy Elephant series are already taken.  

Do you like seeing artwork in a series? Does painting or drawing appeal more to you?

Toy Elephant Medium 2, Acrylic on Canvas, 16" x 20", 2015