Wildlife Artwork on Sale

Gray wolves and polar bears and whooping cranes, oh my! Well, the whooping cranes aren’t very threatening, but they are endangered and are one of the species I have read about and studied, interpreting my findings in a pastel painting. All four of these pieces are available matted, framed and ready to hang. The full details of size dimension and mat and frame are available in my Etsy shop under “Original Art”.  You can click on the title or the image to link to the post on Etsy.

Above is “Taking Flight”, an original pastel painting of two whooping cranes taking off in a marsh on a summer afternoon. Visiting what had once been their habitat on Assateague Island, Virginia, I imagined what they might have looked like in the whispering marshes.

Studying a wild animal in its natural habitat is a reminder that the world does not revolve around us, that these creatures get along just fine (and probably better) without us, that we are really only one more species carrying out our lives on Earth. And while, for me, the inspiration to put an image on paper is always primarily a visual inspiration, wild animals carry the same emotional inspiration as domestic pets—animals are so un-selfconscious. Add to that the beauty of a natural landscape and you’ve got a perfect recipe for visual pleasure.

“Asleep in the Snow” is an original pastel painting of a polar bear family settling down in the snow at sunset. This painting was drawn from many photos of snow, of Alaska, of polar bears, but the basic composition was from one photo I had seen, wondering at the stark, quiet, even threatening beauty of the Arctic that the polar bears endured on a daily basis.

I’ve sold prints of these pieces and I love having the originals hanging in my studio, but in reading more and more about the plight of endangered species, especially polar bear habitat, I need to make room for some new pieces to interpret what’s happening now. I have reduced the prices on these pieces to make them more affordable for those who want a touch of the wild in their home.

I’ve painted polar bears several times, fascinated by the “white” of the bears and snow. This painting is “White?”—we know that snow and polar bears are both white, right? I can assure you there’s not one speck of white anywhere in this piece. In addition to being a dedication to polar bears, it’s also a comment on the perception of color. It’s a small original watercolor sketch painted from photo references.

I have traveled too little to see any real wildlife aside from the critters who inhabit my suburban garden, but the Pittsburgh Zoo is quite an impressive place of natural habitat and we also have conservation sites to visit in the western part of Pennsylvania where endangered species are kept in hopes they’ll breed enough to carry on their species. I also read many magazines and visit websites to learn about these species and reference pictorial resources.

I don’t think I’d be so calm if I had been walking along a trail and met “His Majesty, Gray Wolf”, but I did want to capture the essence of the wolfish expression, and again, there’s snow, one of my favorite subjects with or without wildlife.

But I have always found “Blue Tuna” to be a very calming piece to be around. I am captivated by underwater scenes and water reflections and kept this as monochromatic as possible.

These four originals are ones that would be reasonable to ship, but I have other wildlife originals as well as prints of just about all of my wildlife pieces, large and small. You can see more on my website in “fine art>wildlife”, but the prices you see aren’t accurate—they’re now on sale at my Etsy shop. I’d love to know that these originals were hanging in the home, office or other collection of someone who enjoyed looking at them and had a feeling for the species.

Again, all four of these pieces are available matted, framed and ready to hang. The full details of size dimension and mat and frame are available in my Etsy shop under “Original Art”.