Yep, it's definitely water................

A portion of painting: acrylic on canvas.  Creating the stream layers.

As I decided earlier, this moose will be quite light in color.  I have continued to layer the colors, creating more contour and texture with each layer.  I think I will stop with the addition of the beard, and move to decisions about the "ground" under the moose.

I decided to add some shoreline shadows, mid-stream rocks, and a few water characteristics and see if water is the way to go.  Water seems to be so much more "moosey" than gravel when looking for moose-like habitats.


I decided to continue with the water-work, keeping in mind that while acrylic is not forgiving, it is changeable.

Adding a few more attributes of water, including the ripple lines at the shore.

In addition to adding water attributes, this step involved two major decisions. 

The first major decision was water-depth.  If I made the water too deep, a lot of the leg images of the moose would be submerged.  If the water is too shallow, it will not look very inviting for a moose.  Since the moose is placed fairly near the rocky shoreline, I decided the water should be around a foot deep.

The second decision was about the clarity of the water:  clear, semi-transparent, or murky?  If I were attacking this painting in a different way, the hooves of the moose would not be complete at this point in time, but since I am approaching this painting in layers (of course the moose was originally going to be standing on gravel, )  I would like those to be visible.  I am going to proceed planning to place the moose in a foot of transparent of semi-transparent water that is moving slowly. 

Next decision:  where is the viewer.

I would like the viewer to be on the right-hand side of the moose.  In the wild, I think this would be a more logical location because the moose could more easily make an escape to the left.  If the viewer were in the middle, center of the canvas, the moose would need to charge to escape in any direction, making the image more about confrontation than observation.  I realized that the refiection I added in the painting above are in the right location, but WAY too rigid to be in flowing water - even if the moose is very statuesque.

Yep, it's water!

 I went back into the reflection to give the moving water more influence on the image.  I think it is more accurate than in the prior image - I will continue to think about this one.