I Wish Every Painting Day Was A Moose

Last weekend, I blocked in a pair of moose. Today, we gave the moose some good detail. ANyway, I had a lot of fun bringing the moose out so it looked less like just a splotch of paint. I enjoyed depicting this clumsy-looking, yet graceful creature as a spot of interest in the mural.

Growing up in Idaho, my father, my brothers and I would often go on a plein-air painting excursion to West Yellowstone, Montana, Jackson Hole, Wyoming or Island Park, Idaho. Occasionally, we would see moose come out of the woods and into an open clearing off in the distance. Not wanting to miss anything, I would put my paintbrush down and quietly watch the creature move about in it's natural setting. Sometimes, I would take off in my car to a bird refuge west of Rexburg, Idaho to study Great Blue herons, Sandhill Crane, Snowy Egrets, Comorants and other bird variety, yet I never made painting wildlife a career. Nor am I a hunter like many wildlife artists, yet I would sometimes put wildlife in my landscape paintings as an accent or to add a little life. Perhaps I could have been a wildlife artist.

In 2006, I put some waterfowl and a paint pony in the Inteliserv (a former Novatek business) mural . A few months later, I painted an elk and waterfowl in the foreground of a mural I painted for Alcoa, inc. I sent pictures of these two mural jobs to Cabelas the week after finishing the Alcoa project and heard back from Cabelas corporate office about a week later. In 2007, Cabelas hired me to paint five habitat murals for their under construction East Hartford, Connecticut retail store. It would be nice to get another Cabelas job someday.

Tomorrow, I will go shopping for some smaller paint brushes than I have been using so I can finish the animals. I hope to have the entire mural looking more finished by this weekend.

Jay Gets His Eagle (And A Jay Bird)

Had a little fun with the shop manger today. On the first day I started this mural, the shop manager noticed I was on the job and headed towards me from about 100 feet away. On his face I read what he was going to ask me, "Are you going to put an eagle in the mural?". By the time he came up to me, I answered what I knew was on his mind before the words came out of his mouth, "Yes." I said, "I plan on painting an eagle somewhere in the mural". Satisfied, and without saying a word, the shop manager, who's name is Jay, walked away happy.

The next day, I laid out the mural in charcoal. Along with the layout, I drew an eagle next to the managers office window and wrote the words "Jay Bird" next to the eagle. Everyone thought that was a pretty funny joke.

As the mural progressed, Jay would periodically ask me If I was still planning on putting the eagle in. I would tease him back and say "Of course! And each time you bug me about it, there will be one less eagle feather on the eagle. It really will be a bald eagle!"

I planned to paint and eagle soaring in the sky and thought it would be a fun joke to replace eagle I drew in charcoal with a Stellars Blue Jay. My original plan was to paint a blue jay sitting in a tree next to Jay's window.

Well, today I finally got in the mood to paint in the eagle. The eagle looked good and appeared to be diving for it's prey with sharp talons ready to grip it with a deadly clutch.

When Jay came out of his office and saw the eagle, he was pleased, yet he commented, "It looks like the eagle is after it's prey. You should have it chasing another bird. Maybe a bird that's sitting in the top of a tree." He then went back into his office. While he was at his desk, I had a fun idea. I painted a bird next to the eagle, frantically trying to get away. Jay has a son who also works in the building. He saw the eagle and said he liked it. He knew his dad would be pleased. I asked him if he knew what kind of bird was flying next to the eagle. He said he didn't know, so when I said "Why, it's a Jay bird, a Stellars Blue Jay!", you should have seen the grin that formed on his face.