The Elk

Willow's client is an outdoorsman with Montana on his mind, and he came to Willow wanting a mountain scene at dusk with an elk in it. The one detail he was firm about was the antlers, which had to read as an elk and not a deer or a caribou, and everything else was left to Willow. She set the sunset under a stained glass arch and put the rest of the story in the flowers at the elbow: a yellow rose for Texas, where he lives, and a bitterroot, Montana's state flower, next to it. The arch works because the panes borrow the same amber, teal and rose that sit in the sky underneath them, so the glass reads as a window the landscape is being seen through rather than a border drawn around it. At the bottom the conifers stay dark enough to hold the elk's silhouette, and the flowers are painted much larger than the trees, which pushes the mountains further back. Willow built it over three days in May 2026, on top of an older tattoo. By Willow Webber.

By Willow Webber at Eden Body Art Studios.

Styles: Painterly, Realism, Half Sleeve.