Fox Wall Art

Living With Fox Wall Art

The usual mistake is choosing the cutest thumbnail rather than the image the wall needs. Tight close-ups of a fox's face are irresistible at postage-stamp size and they are the ones most people click, but blown up on a lounge wall you have a very large ginger head watching the room. That works in a small space where you see it near to. In a main room, an image with the fox somewhere inside a scene — frost, hedgerow, bracken, snow — gives the red something to be an accent within, rather than the whole event.

That red is the second thing to plan for. It is a strong warm orange and it will find every other warm colour in the room. Against green, deep blue, charcoal or bare plaster it looks superb. Against terracotta cushions, a pine floor and an orange-toned rug, the fox sinks into the general warmth and the picture loses its point.

Winter and autumn versions behave differently. A snow or frost image is high key and cool, and it brightens a dim room. Autumn woodland is warm and low key, and it needs decent light or it goes brown and sludgy after dark. Check which one you are buying against the room it is going into, ideally under lamplight rather than at noon.

Judge quality at the eyes and the whiskers. A fox's eye is amber with a dark rim, and a good photograph keeps a catchlight in it, while a weak one gives you a flat dark dot. Whisker tips and the fine hair along the ear edges are the other tell. Once those have gone soft, the animal looks stuffed rather than alert.

One placement tip that costs nothing: hang it where the fox's gaze crosses the room rather than running into a wall a pace away. These animals are almost always looking at something, and giving that look somewhere to travel is the difference between a picture that settles into a room and one that feels cornered.