Curious Chipmunk

MEDIUM: Digital Painting | STYLE: Painterly Realism | SIZE: 8 x 10 | ORIENTATION: Portrait | TOOLS: Procreate, 13″ iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro | AVAILABILITY: Prints available.

Chipmunks are among the most adorable woodland creatures — fast, alert, and always scurrying around the underbrush and over old tree stumps. This piece was commissioned as a companion to a Northern Grey Squirrel painting purchased from Shadowmyst Art’s collection. Painted alongside the Long Island Cottontail, also part of the collection, this chipmunk completes the trio. It was a joy to paint such a lively, expressive creature.

ARTIST’S PROCESS: Curious Chipmunk was painted in Procreate on a 13″ iPad Pro using the Apple Pencil Pro. This technique replicates traditional painting’s depth and texture through layered digital brushwork. The process began with careful structural drawing, followed by multiple rounds of color blocking, value refinement, and fur texture detail — including the signature stripes and species characteristics — to capture the chipmunk’s temperament and appearance. Shadow and light were built up using multiple Procreate layers and specific brushes, and the background was created to match the species’ habitat and tell its story.

CHALLENGE: The chipmunk’s tail, similar to its cousin the Northern Grey Squirrel, presents a unique challenge. The tail is thin, with an undercoat of short, thick fur combined with a longer layer of ticked, spread-out strands. Using a thin Procreate brush modified to create multiple, spaced-out strands, the outer fur layer was painted to stand out clearly from the thicker inner coat of the tail.

SUBJECTS AND THEMES: Wildlife — Nature — Chipmunk — Forest — Long Island Wildlife — Woodland Creatures — Procreate Artwork — Painterly Realism