It finally happened: I painted my deer skull, and ‼spoiler alert‼ it came out better than I imagined it would.
I’ve been talking about this project for a hot minute, but it was just too much for me to seriously think about for a while. I was scared to jump into it prematurely and ruin it (it’s not like I have an unlimited amount of skulls here — all of mine are very special and meaningful to me).
the gold detailing really brought the project to life
I’ve been collecting skulls for a couple years now, I wrote a post about my collection in 2023, but since that post I’ve added a few more to the shelf: our 21-year-old cat Hazel, a little sparrow, a deer, and a coyote (who’s still in the process of being cleaned/bleached).
Our family has a bit of a history of bringing home roadkill to feed our neighborhood vultures (or, in my grampa’s case, to try and lure the local bear into his yard), and so when Grampa brought a poor doe home in June, who’d been hit in front of our neighbors’ house, he gave me the skull.
(left) our local bear walking through a neighbor’s yard 2 houses down from us; we’ve been dying to catch a glimpse of this guy for yeeears, but so far, no luck. (right) I’m waiting for the weather to get above 50°f so that I can spray-paint the bottom of the new glass dome holding my sparrow skull. I’d also love to get some glass domes for the cat skulls, but they’re $30+ each, so maybe I’ll buy them after tax/insurance season is over.
My grampa fully supports my collecting, especially since he had a collection of his own when he was a kid.
But while I’m pretty sure that Grampa’s collection was created from animals that he hunted as a young lad in the 60’s and 70’s, I (as a vegan of 15ish years) only add skulls to my collection from animals who’ve died naturally (I hesitate to consider anything about car accidents “natural,” but you know what I’m saying).
Most hunters only hang up the bucks with the biggest, most impressive antlers — the ones that they were most proud of killing. But I feel like it’s much more special for me to commemorate this beautiful doe, who I’m sure I’d seen walking through our meadow earlier that spring.
We’re pretty certain that she had milk when she died, which was heartbreaking to realize what that meant, but although we didn’t find a fawn anywhere when we scoured ours and Grampa’s properties, another doe was spotted with two fawns soon after this lady’s death, and since it’s known that deer will adopt orphaned babies, we fully believe that that’s what happened.
Anyways, now that the story has a happy ending (don’t question it), we can move on to the creative part. The cleaning process took a little while, but the bugs, fungi, and bacteria did a great job, and with all of us working together, we had it thoroughly cleaned before autumn (if you remember, I used it as a prop in this photoshoot).
My original idea was to just paint these flowers and leaves onto the plain bone, because I wanted to keep that natural vibe that was already a theme in my skull collection, but I just couldn’t get this skull as pristinely white as I could my other smaller ones. So even though I was originally stuck on the idea of keeping things natural, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want my bedroom to start having the feel of a scientist’s office. You know, the ones with questionable specimens lined up along shelves in glass vials and shadowboxes.
Sure, the vibes are impeccable, but my personal aesthetic is just a little too clean for that.
So I didn’t know exactly what direction to go with my project until one night when I laid down in bed and had an image of the finished project flash fully-formed in my mind (I’ll often get my bursts of inspiration in this way — I’m a very visual learner).
The next day I felt confident enough to get started on bringing my vision to life. I began by painting the entire skull the same light pink (“lavender moon“) as my bedroom walls, which wasn’t hard, but was quite time-consuming to get into all the cracks and crevices. I then outlined all the natural lines and edges of the bones (plus the remaining teeth) in metallic gold paint before I started to add the flowers.
I’m always nervous about placement when it comes to the flowers and leaves, but I added each one slowly while assessing the open space, and I ended up pretty satisfied with the balance of everything.
I then ordered an 11″x14″ wooden plaque and painted it white to separate the pink skull from my pink wall (and to keep it in theme with my pink+white+gold room).
I had to google the best ways to attach a skull to a plaque, and this is probably one of the only things that will bring lil ol’ me directly to websites named things like “meat eater” and “hunt talk“. After sifting through countless mountain men with thick beards, and even thicker country accents, I decided that threading some wire through the holes behind the ears seemed like the best option for my project.
I drilled two holes into the plaque (Dad showed me how to use the electric drill/driver, so I’d say I’m pretty self-sufficient now), pulled the wire through, and wrapped it securely in the back.
I feel like she might be a little bit off-centered on the plaque, which will drive me crazy (I tried so hard and measured 10x, but it’s extremely difficult on an oval), but other than that, I’m incredibly happy with the outcome. Now this beautiful mama can be memorialized foreva 🌸
I also bought a matching plaque for when my coyote skull is ready — I’m still deciding what I’ll be painting on that one, but I’m considering a butterfly (I have to see if I have enough room). And now that this one came out so well, I’m wondering if I should start painting the smaller ones in my collection.
Because, sure, anyone can have a skull collection, but nobody else can have this skull collection.
art by jordan rae 