Kauai Christie's Art
Spirit Fox — Original Watercolor and Silver Ink
Spirit Fox — Original Watercolor and Silver Ink
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Spirit Fox
A fiery red fox emerges beneath a luminous night sky, surrounded by dark evergreens, stars, and sweeping clouds of blue, violet, and soft pink.
Spirit Fox was created in 2017 and became the beginning of an entirely new mixed-media direction in my work.
The painting actually started with a problem.
I was experimenting with a large sheet of hot-pressed watercolor paper that behaved differently with water than I expected. Rather than abandon an expensive piece of paper—or force it to become something it clearly did not want to be—I started thinking about another part of my artistic background:
tattooing.
Years of tattoo work had taught me to think in strong lines, contained areas of color, movement, and graphic shapes.
So I began combining metallic silver linework with transparent watercolor.
What started as an experiment worked.
Better than that—it became something new.
And Spirit Fox helped begin a body of mixed-media work I now call:
Silver Lining Art.
The Silver Lining
The name has a double meaning.
The literal silver linework moves throughout the composition, separating and defining areas of transparent color much like the linework of a tattoo.
But it also represents something I have experienced repeatedly as an artist:
Sometimes an unexpected problem sends the work somewhere more interesting than the original plan ever could.
In Spirit Fox, watercolor and metallic silver begin to behave almost like two artistic languages meeting one another—one fluid and transparent, the other graphic and defined.
The result became a fusion of my fine-art watercolor practice and the visual instincts I developed during my years as a tattoo artist.
A problem became an experiment.
The experiment became a technique.
And the technique became a new body of work.
There was the silver lining. ✨
Wild Fox Medicine
The fox itself carries a more personal meaning.
For years, I’ve affectionately used the phrase “Wild Fox Medicine” within my family around the natural, nurturing side of caring for the people I love.
Somewhere along the way, I became my own version of a little medicine fox.
Wild. Intuitive. Protective. Curious.
Probably slightly mischievous. 😉
So when this piece began taking shape, the fox felt like the perfect subject.
I didn’t want the animal to feel purely realistic. I wanted it to exist somewhere between the physical and symbolic worlds—a fox with presence, intelligence, fire, and a little mystery.
That is where the title Spirit Fox came from.
Fire Beneath the Stars
The fox’s coat is built from oranges, corals, reds, magentas, violets, and deeper shadow tones.
Rather than treating the fur literally, I wanted it to move almost like flame.
The metallic silver linework travels through those colors like energy, defining individual shapes while allowing the watercolor to remain fluid within them.
Against that warmth is the cool night:
deep evergreen silhouettes, luminous blues, soft violet and pink clouds, and a sky filled with stars.
From across a room, Spirit Fox reads boldly and almost graphically.
Up close, the painting changes.
The silver linework becomes more apparent. Individual passages of watercolor emerge. The fox's eye, the patterns within the fur, the trees, stars, and metallic details invite a much slower look.
Perhaps that is why this is one of those paintings that occasionally makes someone simply stop in the gallery and stare for a while.
There is more to discover the longer you stay with her.
Watercolor & Silver Ink
Spirit Fox is an original mixed-media work created with transparent watercolor and metallic silver ink.
The watercolor provides the luminous shifts of color throughout the fox, sky, and forest, while the silver linework introduces the graphic structure that became characteristic of my Silver Lining work.
The technique draws from two different chapters of my artistic life—traditional watercolor painting and tattoo-influenced linework—bringing them together into one visual language.
No reproduction can fully capture the way the metallic silver responds to changing light when the original is viewed in person.
Artwork Details
Original Watercolor & Silver Ink · One of One
Title: Spirit Fox
Artist: Christie Marie Elder
Series: Silver Lining Art
Created: 2017
Medium: Watercolor and metallic silver ink
Artwork Dimensions: 30" H × 20" W
Framed Dimensions: 36" H × 29½" W × 2" D
Price: $12,000
Framing
Spirit Fox is professionally presented in an unusually rich, layered frame featuring warm burl-patterned wood, a deep midnight-blue silk liner with visible twill texture, and a narrow antiqued metallic inner accent.
The framing intentionally continues the palette of the painting beyond the artwork itself.
The warmth and movement of the wood echo the fiery oranges and russets of the fox. The midnight-blue silk extends the depth of the night sky, while the metallic inner accent quietly relates back to the silver linework running throughout the original.
It is a slightly wild frame for a slightly wild painting.
It seemed appropriate. 🦊✨
Professionally framed and ready to hang.
Artist Signature & Documentation
Signature: Signed by Christie Marie Elder on the front.
Each original artwork includes a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) together with an artist biography for provenance and collector records.
Copyright
© Christie Marie Elder. All rights reserved.
Purchase of the original artwork transfers ownership of the physical artwork only. Copyright and reproduction rights remain with the artist and do not transfer with the sale.
Shipping & Delivery
Kauaʻi: Complimentary gallery pickup or local delivery is available for original artwork purchases.
Off-Island & International Collectors: Because each original artwork requires specialized packing and insured transport, shipping is quoted individually based on the artwork and destination.
Before purchasing, please click the “Request a Shipping Quote” button on this page and complete the short form with your delivery address. We’ll arrange the appropriate professional packing and transport, then contact you with the complete shipping quote.
Once you approve the quote, we’ll send you a secure invoice through our online gallery for the artwork and shipping.
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