Experimental Elephant Painting

"Elephant Sunset" acrylic, 2013

I originally planned on doing a realistically colored elephant with some plants and other nature details in the background, but of course I got pretty bored with that approach. Instead, I played around with adding color to the elephant in such a way that it almost looks like I used chalk pastel instead of acrylic paint. I decided to do a fiery sunset background because I liked the contrast it made with the pale pastel colors on the elephant. I'm not sure that this painting turned out exactly as I would have liked, but it was certainly an interesting painting to work on.