First painting of 2012 in progress

Here is my studio as of January 2012, ha ha if you can call it that, it consists of a plastic chair,wooden easel,lamp,and my wooden box containing my paints and brushes.Since this area is next to my bed ,I think a better name would be my art space.One day when I start selling more art ,I  hope to have a studio,a room just dedicated to the process of creating art.I would no longer have to worry about cleaning up smears of oil paint off my bed or bedroom floor.And a place where I can store my large number of painted and unpainted canvases which at the moment are bunged up behind my easel and overflowing to the other corners of my bedroom.

This is what I am working on at the moment,a oil painting of a rhino charging two elephants.Although I am using a couple of photos for reference,there was a lot of changes I made to the composition .In the photos the rhino was actually overlapping the middle elephant,making it feel a bit cluttered ,so I positioned him more to the right so that he was running into the painting.The background in the photos contained trees and shrubs,and some of the trees ,were casting dark shadows over the elephants.This created a bit of a challenge,since I did not want any trees or shadows on the elephants  ,so I had to use a bit of guess work of what the skin tones on an elephant would look like when not in shadow. As the animals are in the late afternoon sun, I wanted to highlight this light so I decided to have storm clouds in the background to create some contrast .The clouds also worked well as an element of composition ,in that it draws the viewer into the picture. 

                                                A close up pictures of the center elephant.

                                  Here are some progress pictures of the rhino,which I did last night.

 My brother and I have been useless at thinking of  titles, we cant agree on any of them so,although it is not yet finished,any suggestions for a title are welcome.