Painting In Progress | "Solitude - Snowy Owl"

When I began this painting, I knew I wanted the background to be a snowy open field and I was going to place the owl on a rock, surrounded by dried grass. However, after I applied the sky colors and snowy field, I changed my mind on the surroundings, as I really liked the simple look for the background. At this point, I decided to add a broken fence post in place of the dried grass and rock.

I rarely title a painting before the painting is done, because that can be one of my biggest challenges. Because of the painting's simplicity of one single fence post and one owl I chose "Solitude - Snowy Owl" as the title.

In my next post I will show the completed painting, so check back soon! As always comments and questions are welcome!

Painting In Progress | Black Wolf (continued)

Now that I have the wolf and background blocked in, I am ready to have fun in painting the fur. Yes, for me it is fun because it is like bringing my subject to life.

The 2nd. coat of fur and more detail to the eyes and nose.

Here I added a 3rd coat of fur with a few highlights and painted in the foreground pine tree branches and leaves. I decided at this point to add more leaves in the mid-ground in contrasting fall colors to add more depth to my painting.

Now I am ready to paint the final coat of fur and highlights where I feel it is needed. I also notice that the right eye needs to be adjusted to correspond with the left eye. In my next post I will show you the completed painting, so check back soon!

Any comments or questions you may have are welcome!

Welcome to My Blog!

 Growing up on a small farm in Upstate New York helped me develop a strong connection to wildlife and nature. My lifelong experiences with animals and nature are the inspirations for every painting I complete.  After many years, of developing my love for wildlife, I decided to apply it to my artistic talent. I am not a formally trained artist and all of my abilities are self-taught through reading how-to books, visiting local art exhibits, and by traveling to many parts of the world. Through my travels to Africa, Amazon, Tahiti, Mexico and through out the United States I developed a strong connection to my passion for artwork and was inspired to become a full-time artist.

As you can see in my paintings, several aspects of nature and wildlife fuel my inspirations. Whether it’s a sound I hear in the forest or something I observe while I am exploring the world, each of these experiences can be found within my artwork. After trying many mediums, I decided that my true love was with oils. I fell in love with oil because it allowed me to paint flowing lines of fur and feathers.  Through many years of experience, I have established painting techniques that help me bring emotion and mood to each of my pieces. I have been able to create paintings with high levels of realism through elements of light and shadows. My goal as an artist is to translate my love for nature and wildlife into beautiful artwork that people from all walks of life can enjoy and appreciate.  To me, artwork is more than skill; it is the expression of a vision and a communication of my life experiences with animals.  I hope that my paintings inspire others to explore nature in order to develop a deeper connection with animals.

My goal for this blog is to share my inspirations and experiences as an artist. I will share information about local art exhibits, techniques I am using, painting in progress and photos of nature and wildlife that inspire me. I hope this blog will help you better understand my motivations as an artist and encourage you to develop a deeper connection with nature.

Visit my website to view my latest paintings!