Baby Elephant

What is in the picture

The elephant stands facing forward with both ears out, the head dipped a little and the trunk curling in towards one front foot. The body is a soft grey green with the paint left visibly uneven, darker where the ears fold, paler across the forehead, so it reads as watercolour rather than as a flat illustration. Two short white tusks and two dark eyes are the only strong marks in the whole picture.

Behind the animal there is no scene, only torn patches of blush and clay with bare paper showing between them. That matters more than it sounds. With nothing else drawn, the print sits quietly beside wallpaper, a mobile or a shelf of books instead of competing with them.

The one that works on its own

This is the calmest of the three animals. Above a dresser or a changing table it holds a wall by itself, because the shape is symmetrical and reads clearly from the doorway. If you hang all three, the elephant belongs in the middle: it looks straight ahead, while the giraffe and the lion both turn slightly out of frame.

Printing this one

The background is the delicate part. Pale blush washes lose their edges on ordinary copier paper and collapse into one flat pink block, which takes the hand painted look with them. Matte photo paper or a heavier art stock keeps the difference between the washed areas and the bare white. Print at normal or high quality, at actual size rather than fit to page, and leave colour management to the printer driver on the first sheet.