Hot off the “Press”

                  Here are the newly finished paintings of Wyatt and Ajax, the Amur Leopard couple I met at the Santa Barbara Zoo last year. Ajax (the female on the right) had just arrived from a zoo in the U.K. because the AZA had determined that a mating […]

Seven Wonders of the World

I may have forgotten to mention that I’ve chosen SEVEN of my endangered species paintings for limited edition prints, in two sizes: 14″ x 14″ or 20″x 20″ (plus an inch all around for the white border).     No prints are larger than their original painting, so my 16″ paintings (such as Indah on the left […]

Revisiting

Last month, for the first time ever, I revisited animals I’d met in 2014, some of whom I’d already painted. “Things change” is one lesson learned. These animals live in communities. Things are dynamic. Life happens for them too. Michael was my favorite gorilla in 2014. Belonging to the bachelor troop of three at the Houston Zoo, […]

meeting my subjects…

Last week I finished painting a Malayan tiger I’d met in Houston in May 2015. While painting, I didn’t know the tiger’s name or age or gender. I only knew that two of the more than twenty times I came to visit, the tiger would be awake, sitting up in the grass, surveying their world […]

Heading Home

The timing of my visit to the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita was just about perfect. Their six new African elephants who came over from Swaziland in March were finally all comfy with each other and with Stephanie, the resident 45-year-old, and all could share their five-acre yard together. Here are five of seven, new matriarch Stephanie […]

one step follows another

It all feels experimental these days. I begin each painting with the scary but exciting sensation that I have no idea what I’m doing. This is clearly not completely true, but there is a kernel of truth in it that I think is vital because that’s where play and experimentation live. Since each day’s work […]

Rosamund Gifford Zoo

Ain’t he a beaut. (I think he’s a he but I’m actually not sure.) He was very engaged. His home is a biggish but not huge cage with chain link walls and ceiling – sky above, a bit of a hill, tree, downed trees and branches for climbing. a tiny pool. There was one glass wall for paw-to-paw […]

KINGDOM ANIMALIA, Part One

KINGDOM ANIMALIA.  Where do I start with this many-threaded story?    I really do not know how to paint right now.  I can paint, surely.  My skills have even improved with all the practice of Better Angels. Yet I say I don’t know how to paint NOW because I spent three years using only “00” […]

Welcome to the NEW dawnsiebel.com

First, thank you to Cody Schatzle for putting together this new website for me.  I still have much to learn to do all the updating myself, but I know how to post a blog because of my Better Angels website (www.betterangels911.c0m). I plan to post here are least once a week.  My posts will highlight […]