I love the late afternoons when the animals come out to forage. This little deer stood and watched me for some minutes before disappearing back into the undergrowth.

I used a limited palette of naples yellow, windsor yellow, cerulean, windsor blue, burnt sienna and rose madder. I wanted to get a kind of dreamy effect, with the deer in tight focus and blobs of paint in the shadows and around the edges. I did most of the painting with a princeton quill (my favourite brush). Hot press Saunders Waterford.