The lost fawn

Original art work title -The deer in the forest

This painting was my second attempt in watercolour realism. The original photo was by Alvis Lazarus an avid wildlife photographer. I was painting fur for the first time and yes there were struggles of figuring out the colour and also the texture of the fawn. When I saw the photograph for the first time, I loved the eyes of this animal. It was so alive. However, after I finished the painting and shared it with the photographer, he told me the story behind the photograph.

This was a photo of a lost fawn in a jungle in Madhya Pradesh, India. This photo was clicked in the evening and the fawn was alone, away from the herd. It is very difficult for fawns to survive in such circumstances. They become easy prey of the wild animals. So, Alvis informed me that if the fawn doesn’t get back to its herd, it may survive hardly for a day as it can't even find proper food for itself.

The information I got made me sad. For sometime my mind was reeling in the jungles imagining the spite of this little one. I asked myself did I paint a picture of an animal who was in the verge of death? I had no answers to quieten my mind. Whenever I looked at this painting, It reminded me of that beautiful eye that caught my attention.The next moment it made me uncomfortable, thinking, was it a look to seek help or show its helplessness?

However, time heals everything. Over the years, I have realised that as an artist I paint what I love. And sometimes things I love my have sad stories. What matters is celebration of that moment. Celebration of that beautiful look of the fawn that I have captured in my art that can live much longer. Also, I am an optimist. Perhaps all that I imagined earlier was wrong. This fawn's mother must have found it just around the corner and returned safely to the head. And perhaps it has become a beautiful deer now, ruling the grasslands of the forest in the golden sunshine.