African wild dogs have been a long-held favorite animal of mine since I was a kid, and while I've had a revolving door of favorites for many other species, the african wild dog has never lost its place in my heart. 💕

These beautiful but fierce creatures are some of nature's most breath-taking abstract canvases! When I first made my return to art after a hiatus, I wanted to branch out and explore a medium that I hadn't really touched since high school. I wanted to approach not only a subject I loved but attempt to represent it in as realistic of a form as I could at the time.

While there are many things that I would probably do drastically different, if I were to recreate this piece today; for never having 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. This was also the first time that I attempted to throw any amount of effort into a 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, so instead I opted for a more "abstract" style background.

~ Created in 2020 ~