Wilderness Research Trips:  

 ADVENTURES IN NATURE  (Click to see photos & story)

       For me the greatest joy is being out-of-doors.
       In ADVENTURES IN NATURE, you can read and see photographs of my outdoors
adventures dating back to the 1960's. 
       Whether it's kayaking the coast of British Columbia, hiking the Appalachian Trail, or
exploring Belize, I've never been disappointed by what I've found! 

 

Artist's History

1990  Early Artwork (click to see the art) 
        My initiation to painting full time began in 1990 when I finished my
first wildlife painting titled "Kit Fox at White Sands."  Several months
went into it, and then the jurors at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum
saw it and decided to include it in their new show, Wildlife: The Artist's View -
followed by a tour to other museums around the country.  (For info on the
museum click here.) 

Kit Fox at White Sands   (my first wildlife painting) 

          My approach at this time was from a naturalist's point of view.  I had
graduated from Cornell University with a degree in the natural sciences, and
had completed a 10,000 mile trek,  exploring the natural environments of the
U.S., spending 16 months hiking, paddling, and bicycling.  I had always (from
my earliest childhood recollections) been able to draw and paint, but now I
realized that there were people who actually earned a living by painting
pictures of animals.  The acceptance at Leigh Yawkey inspired me to create more
paintings, and within a few months I was voted in as new member of the Society
of Animal Artists, an international organization whose focus is on depicting animals
in two-dimensional and sculptural art.

         During these early years my “Art” continued to be governed by strong
feelings I had as a naturalist and scientist, which meant imbuing each painting
with fine details.  Lichens growing on rocks were not only fascinating because
of their visual patterns, but because of their symbiotic relationship of plant and
fungi living together as one.

Close-up from an early painting showing the detail of lichens and rock
  
          When I looked at a leaf and noticed a ball-shaped bulge on its
under-surface, I felt it was important to paint that detail because I knew that a
parasitic wasp larva was living inside.  My knowledge of Nature outweighed my
knowledge of Art.   Details and fine-pointed brushes were the order of the day.   
Fortunately this type of Art was sought after by art collectors and within one year
of completing Kit Fox at White Sands I was working closely with America’s leading
publisher of “fine-art-prints.”  The Greenwich Workshop wanted to make limited
edition reproductions of my paintings and sell them through their network of
galleries across America and Canada.  For the next five years I worked under
their direction, creating paintings for this venue.
 

     Wolf Creek (limited edition print) published by The Greenwich Workshop 

1996  Textured Acrylics (click to see the art)

           As my knowledge of the Art World began to catch up with my knowledge
of the Natural World, I began to look beyond the genre of wildlife art to discover
other painting techniques that would convey how I felt about wild creatures. 
My appetite for studying and learning about other artists’ work was insatiable,
and my library of art books covered the whole gamut of styles and periods.  By
1996 I was prepared to embark on a new course and direction, to experiment
with a new media that would allow me more freedom.  I chose acrylic paints
because of their rapid drying time.  I had been using slow-drying oils for five years
and now appreciated acrylics ability to dry within minutes, to layer on the paint and
create translucent glazes that would have taken days or weeks with oils.  I developed
a method of building up texture on the panel’s surface with plaster and acrylic paste
on top of which I layered thin paint.  Texture became a new passion, and I even went
so far as to glue pebbles onto the surface to simulate the ground where a fox or quail
would stand.

 
Close-up of an acrylic painting (showing texture)

Foxfire  20 X 24  acrylic  (exhibited at Artists of America, 1998)
           
         In 1998 I was invited to participate in the “Artists of America Exhibition” in
Denver.  This was an auspicious occasion on which to show my new acrylic works for
the first time.  Not only did the paintings sell, but the number of ballots cast for my
paintings was second only to one other artist. I went home with renewed enthusiasm
and set to work at a pace that far exceeded anything I had accomplished in oil paints. 
Over the next two years I envisioned, produced, framed and sold more than 100
paintings.


Close-up of acrylic painting

2000  Current Artwork (click to see the art)

           During the spring of 2000 as one of my acrylics was featured on the cover of
Southwest Art magazine, the leading publication on realism in the American west, I
began once again to experiment with Oils.  My desire to capture animals in motion
was at odds with the acrylic medium.  It seems that the very thing that had attracted
me to acrylics was now the major drawback: the quick drying time.  When you put a
brush-stroke down with acrylic, it sticks.  Put a brush-stroke down with oil paint and
it can be moved, manipulated, and blended in hundred different ways.  Moving animals
required a moving medium.  And so I returned to Oils.

  
Rufous Hummingbird  oil   6.75 X 11.25         

Close-up of an oil painting