February 22, 2015

2-22-15
Noel, a friend, who lives in Utah, does a lot of walking. (It actually sounds like pretty vigorous hiking to me!)  She and her husband live near Park City, where it seems like there are a lot a fun trails and views to enjoy! Yesterday, she told me that she saw a big ol' bull moose! 

Of course I had to draw a bull moose. I found this photo of an old bull moose with a broken antler and I had to do him. I wanted to do a back lighting on him and since Noel said that her hands were frozen after that hike, I thought that her breath and the moose would have shown too, so I included steam coming out of the nostrils and the back of the moose. I remember the steers that we used to have in our backyard when I was a teen. When it was cold, steam would rise from the nose and mouth and if it was cold enough, the body as well.

I wanted this moose to be standing out from the snow, so I made him is a little darker. I have never seen a moose up close in the wild, or been in the area that she hikes, so I had to guessed about the animal scale and terrain. I've seen pictures, but the amount of snow, if any there, and the vegetation was a guess. 

We don't have moose here in California, but coming up onto a full grown bull moose was probably as startling as encountering a big elk. I came up on one, not more than 15 feet away, while rounding a blind turn, on a bicycle at Gold Bluff Beach in Northern California. That elk was big, but probably not even half as big as a moose! How exciting and cool was that, Noel?!!! I bet that it was an enchanted encounter!