Chloe Erskine

9x12

Acrylic

2023

I got the idea to paint a squirrel in the snow because it was winter when I thought of it, and I also like squirrels.  Not too long ago I did a research project on squirrels, so I know a lot about them.  I wanted my first painting to be an animal of some sort, but I didn't know what kind.  When I started my painting class, I didn't expect to be painting a squirrel.  Throughout this project, I used a lot of acrylic paint.  I had a lot of trouble at the start trying to mix the lightest paint for the background.  I also had trouble trying to find a crisp brown to use for the squirrel's fur.  I used a lot of different-sized paintbrushes, but for the snow, I brought my own paintbrush from home because I couldn't find any really small paintbrushes.  In my opinion, there's nothing really meaningful about this painting, only that it symbolizes nature and how animals interact with it.  If someone else were to look at my painting, I'd want them to think about how squirrels adapt to nature and how they survive.  There is no symbolic imagery in this painting.  The most difficult thing so far was trying to add details to the fur, I was never satisfied with any of the colors I mixed, so I had to keep remixing colors until I was happy with the shade I got.  If I were to re-do this painting, I would start off by sketching everything I wanted including the fur details so that way I'd have a better idea of what I wanted.  I'm trying to make this painting a more realistic piece of art.  The thing that sticks out to me the most is the snow details in the background.