African Elephant and Calf

As with all my paintings, the first stage is to draw the subjects without any fine detail

and then to add a fine acrylic wash. The next stage was to decide what type of

background to choose: would it be a simple, blurred background or a detailed

background?

For stage three, I decided to go for a savannah-type landscape while concentrating

on the detailed wrinkles of the elephant’s skin. The final stage was to complete the

details in the background and lighten the sky.

African Elephant and Calf Facts

The African Savanna (Bush) elephant is the world's largest land animal, with adult

males, or bull elephants, standing up to 3m high and weighing up to 6,000kg on

average.

A baby elephant is called a calf.

Baby elephants stay very close to their mothers for the first few months and drink

their mother’s milk for about two years, sometimes longer.

The baby elephants stay with their mothers on average for 16 years, just about the same amount of time that human children rely on their parents.

A baby elephant can weigh as much as 200 pounds or 90 kg at birth.

Baby elephants’ bodies are covered in hair, which reduces over time as they age.

These hairs aid in cooling down its body.

Elephant tusks are actually enlarged incisor teeth which first appear when elephants

are around 2 years old, and their tusks continue growing throughout their lives.

Tusks are used to help with feeding - prising bark off trees or digging up roots - or as

a defence when fighting.

Around 90% of African elephants have been wiped out in the past century - largely due to the ivory trade, leaving an estimated 415,000 wild elephants alive today.

Shop Now