Celebrating Recovery of Endangered North American Wildlife
This series of paintings features intimate, textural portraits of North American wildlife, featuring animals that nearly disappeared but are recovering through human actions to save them. These encouraging comeback stories underscore man's critical place as steward of wild places and creatures.
Objective(s):
Since the collection was first unveiled the Asheville Gallery of Art, five of the original pieces have sold, which led to a donation of $500 to Defenders of Wildlife. While the exhibition is no longer on display at the gallery, I will continue to honor my pledge to donate 10% of any proceeds for these works to Defenders of Wildlife.
Background:
In considering how to depict these amazing animals, I wanted the viewer to feel like each image is emerging from darkness and evolving, a symbolic "return from darkness" that has been the recovery journey for these species.
Working on a clay-coated board, I began by texturizing and “aging” the surface with a variety of etching tools. Then I applied a layer of watercolor, pastel and/or colored ink. The prepared board was then painted with sumi-e ink. Using various scoring and scraping tools, I removed the sumi-e ink so that the animal “emerged” from the background. Finally, accents of color were added – sometimes sparingly or monochromatically – using oil pastel.
