It’s My Time: The Story Behind the Stag Painting

It’s my time- Watercolor

Sometimes, inspiration arrives quietly—piece by piece—until these fragments come together as an idea you can’t help but bring to life.

Three months into living in WA Kirkland, where towering trees surround my house, I was still adjusting to the quiet. Everything felt slower, mistier, and somehow more like eyes watching me. It was on one of these slow mornings, driving my son to daycare, that I first saw him—a deer, right there on the road. I stopped. He walked on by like he belonged to a different world. And for a moment, it felt like he did.

On my way back home, I thought maybe that was it—just one glimpse. But he wasn’t done. An hour later after returning to the neighborhood, I noticed him again, walking away down the streets near my house. I did feel like parking the car to get a closer look at this majestic creature but thought it better to leave him alone and drove away. And then, later that same day, he visited my garden.

This time, it was just us. He didn’t run. He just stood there, calm and wild all at once, his gaze steady. I felt an unexpected stillness. It reminded me of Shishigami from Princess Mononoke—that sacred presence that feels both beautiful and dangerous.

Then, that night, I heard loud cracks in the distance—gunshots? I felt scared. I thought of him. I checked hunting regulations, knowing it was November, but hunting wasn’t allowed in my area. Still, the thought stuck. Was he okay? I hated that I couldn’t know.

That feeling—the beauty of the moment, the fear, the connection—it stayed and stayed. When I thought about my next big painting, it wasn’t obvious at first. I danced around ideas, but the image of him kept returning, more persistent each time. The painting became more than just a painting of a deer—it was a way to hold onto that moment, to honor it.

The process wasn’t easy. It was my first large-scale watercolor with an animal as the subject AND my first time really painting landscape as well. I struggled with the background, the layering, the fur’s texture. Watercolor doesn’t forgive, and I kept hesitating—should I go darker here? How do I show the depth without losing the transparency of watercolor? It was a constant push and pull.

I finished it—or so I thought—by the end of December. But it sat there, untouched, for weeks on the easel. Something was missing. Then, in late January, I saw it in my mind—two gold circles framing the stag. Were they a target? A halo? Both? It made me think of vulnerability, how being seen as a majestic creature can be both beautiful yet dangerous.

I haven’t added the circles yet. I’m still sitting with it. In watercolor, there’s no undoing. But I know I’ll get there when it feels right.

This painting, titled It’s My Time, is about presence, vulnerability, and the strange ways nature draws us in, in its beauty. It’s about that deer who stopped me in my tracks—and how a single moment can stay, long after it’s gone.

Have you had such a connection with a creature?

Full painting process : The Surprising Ways Nature Inspires Art