Bush Buck:

Natural History: Bushbucks are small antelopes found in many countries in Africa. They are found in heavy cover and known to be very elusive. There are many "races/subspecies" of bushbuck. Some are darker, some have more stripes and spots, or hardly any at all and the males have beautiful spiral horns.

Jan has been traveling to Africa for over 13 years. She has been to Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Here she is seen in Kenya during the wildebeest migrations. Jan and her husband James photograph when they are there, and Jan also sketches. Together they average around 18,000 digital photos! But Jan also takes many photos of habitat, closeups of leaves, grass etc. as well as the animals. She then brings these back to her studio in Oklahoma where she completes her "studio" paintings.

Jan first does a drawing of the main elements of the painting to the exact size of the original. She then tapes it to the top of the masonite she is painting on with masking tape "hinges".

Jan likes to create very "organic" underpaintings. Random "textures" that mimic more closely what is found in nature. The human mind tries to "organize" the randomness of nature, thus it is very difficult for an artist to accurately depict nature with just brush strokes. Being a naturalist, these minutiae are important to Jan. Here she is utilizing crumpled cellophane to create the leafy underbrush of the back river bank.

The far off bank now has some plants blocked in, and the drawing of the main elements have been transferred to the painting surface with artist white transfer paper.

In the photo Jan had taken in Tanzania, the bushbuck and the surrounding area were completely in shadow. To add interest and depth Jan has decided to add the element of sunlight, filtering through the thick forest canopy. Here Jan has added some detailed leaves hanging in the foreground, with light coming through and hitting on top of them.

In this photo the bushbuck has been blocked in with a dark brown/purple underpainting, and the drawing details have been transferred with the white artist transfer paper

Jan has a large collection of skins and skulls that she references frequently in her work. She wanted to have the horns more strongly lit in the painting than they were in the photo, and knowing you just can't make up nature, she set up a still life with her bushbuck skull. Since it was cloudy outside, she took the skull down to her basement and used a very strong photographers lamp to light the skull so that she could see how the highlights would fall.

Jan uses a technique she actually developed in her twenties when she was doing scratchboard and pen and ink which is to "draw" out the hair coat of the animal. She uses this technique in all but very slick coated animals to create the feeling that there is "depth" to the hair. Here she has "drawn" out the hair in an off white paint half way down the antelope's body. The horns are completed.

Jan has now completely "drawn" in the hair coat of the bushbuck in the off white paint. This is the most time consuming and tedious part of a painting! But it's necessary Jan feels, to create a feeling of "air" as well as "hair". That is, that you know there is a depth (even though not much in some cases such as an antelope's coat) that you could get your fingers into. Jan says it's like building the framework for a house. It might get "covered up" but it is still essential for the house to stand!

On of the things that Jan liked about the photo she had taken of the bush buck was his raised foot delicately stepping out of the water. Unfortunately, since he was moving, the foot wasn't in good focus. So Jan pulled out a deer foot that she had in her studio to look at the way the hoof would look. Both bush buck and whitetail deer have the same configuration to their hoofs (including the two false hoofs), so Jan could look at it for accurate reference.

Jan has done a brown unifying wash over the entire bushbuck to prepare to begin the final detailing of his coat.

Those of you who have watched this area for a while, know that Jan really loves to use cellophane to create textures. As seen in the first part of this painting, she used it to create an organic undertexture for the background forest. Here she is using it to create the texture of rocks

Here is a closeup of some of the rocks to see how the cellophane creates a realistic texture.

If you look closely at the original drawing you will see that Jan had planned to put this palmetto plant a little higher up in the painting. This often happens, that the painting will "take on a life of its own" and dictate what it needs. In this case, Jan thought the composition and interest would be stronger if the backlit palmetto was more in the corner of the painting. She cut the plant out of the drawing and moved it into place on the painting. You can see it here, flipped off its masking tape hinges after the drawing was transferred. Jan painted in the palmetto in white first so that she could put a clear "glowing" wash on it.

This is the completed painting "STEPPING OUT" - 24" x 36". It was a commission so the original is sold, but two sizes of giclée prints are being done - 18" x 24" and 24" x 36".