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, […]

choosing the next

shipped 20 paintings out of the studio. empty walls. Working on a 48×48 portrait of Sango, a beautiful lion and first-time dad I met almost a year ago at the Denver Zoo. Usually, as I get involved in a painting, I have some sense of my subject coming forward and entering the painting. If their presence is weak, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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” […]