The male giraffe that is the subject of this painting was quite spectacular. He was considerably larger than any of the others in the enclosure. I was particularly drawn to the character of his face. I loved all the wrinkles and the graying of his balding head and I enjoyed working with the rhythms of the shapes and patterns in his coat. The negative space was also important to this work. I actually framed out my Image by how much negative space I wanted, not how much giraffe.

When I had created this giraffe painting it had been a very long time since I had a committed a giraffe to art. I had such fun doing it that I wondered why I'd not done one sooner. This old bachelor was such a great animal that I'm sure he will be the subject of many more paintings to come.

The original giraffe painting was done in watercolor pencil on hot press watercolor paper.