My neighborhood has a network of trails where several deer live. One of my neighbors snapped the reference photo (used with permission) of this doe standing along a pond under curtain of Spanish moss highlighted by the misty morning sunlight. Even with my removing elements of the reference scene to simplify the composition, this painting was very complicated with all the values and distance of the background to the foreground. One color technique I used in this painting was to make the background more blue in order for the bright greens and Spanish moss on the branch to sparkle.