Eastern Spring

Today's painting completes the "Grand Slam" with the Eastern wild turkey. The weather outside is cold, windy and rainy. I decided to make this painting as spring beautiful as I could. One of my favorite parts of turkey hunting on a beautiful spring day is just sitting, listening, smelling and feeling the morning. As I painted this, I thought about birds singing and the temperature rising as a spring morning passes. I tried to create a good spot in the background for a hunter to tuck into. I've always said, I hunt in black and white. Since I've started these paintings, more of my hunting time will be in color!

Western Pride

It seemed to take forever for me to decide on a specific direction for this painting. After much thought, I decided to try a subtle difference on the gobbler's breast feathers. I wanted to do a round, smooth look. Since this is a Merriams turkey, I really wanted to accent the almost white feathers. I chose a dark pine timber. It's such a nice day out, I took a short break at noon to walk through my pine trees. After looking at the pine needles and bark, smelling the pine scent, and painting this scene, I feel like I took a mini trip to Montana today and it didn't cost me a dime!

Cactus King

Today was No. 2 in the "Grand Slam" week, the Rio Grande. I have been in Rio Grande habitat and have experienced cactus up close and very personal butt, that's another story. I wanted to make sure this painting had an arid look , so I eased off the green. Today went real smooth. From sketch to finish, I never had that lost feeling that seems to accompany most of my paintings. Yay for me! Tomorrow I'm painting a cooler spot.

Southern Colors

It's a beautiful, sunny Monday but the temperature is freezing outside. I've decided to try the four different types of turkeys common in the US. This will be my "Grand Slam" of turkey art. Since it's so cold, I'll start with our warm weather friend ,the Osceola. Since I've never seen one, I had to do a little research this weekend to get the physical characteristics and habitat as close as possible. I wish it was Friday so I could go to my blog and see what I'm painting for Tuesday!

Shadow's Edge

I've noticed when turkey hunting, as the sun gets over the horizon, shadows are everywhere. The real early shadows are the strongest. If two turkeys are walking together and one steps out in to the light, he can look like he's glowing. The bird in the shadow might be barely visible. As an artist, watching the color difference as the turkeys go in and out of the light is almost as fun as hunting. Well not quite, but it is fun! That's what I tried to show in this painting.

Called In

As it gets closer to turkey season, I'm watching more hunting videos for new ideas and entertainment. To me the most exiciting of all hunting scenes is the appearance of a gobbler at point blank range without having watched his approach. It really gets the old adrenaline pumping as each gobble gets closer and closer. You know he's coming, but you can't see him. He goes quiet. You just know he has to be right there. Then he pops over the hill right in your lap! That's this painting.

Picture Perfect

I've had this sketch on the masonite panel for several days, but I just couldn't decide what to do with it. Since I did a very light background yesterday I wanted to try something really dark today. I always try to paint a gobbler that is looking his best. We've all seen them with missing or out of place feathers, but who wants a painting of that? This old boss looks like a kid ready for his class picture...Picture Perfect.

Golden Mist

I was excited to get started on this Monday morning . Over the weekend, I had shown a small study painting that tested an idea to my sons, Eric and Daniel. It showed three gobblers in a misty field. Even though the study was small, rough and not detailed at all, they liked it. They were actually pretty enthusiastic about it. That gets me excited. I hope they and you like the finished painting. If you noticed a better format to my blog, my daughter-in-law, Mary, worked all weekend to remodel it and try to help me with my computer skills. She was able to bring my skill level up to that of an elderly chimpanzee!

Golden Gobbler

It's Sunday so I'm not doing a new painting today. I did want to add this one I painted a couple weeks ago, since it is my favorite. It's not that it's better than the others , the whole piece just seems to work ( light,detail,pose ,composition). It looks like this bird might have just heard the click of a safety!

Hardwoods Handsome

I painted this painting yesterday , which was Friday the Thirteenth. The entire day seemed jinxed as I worked to get the blue background right. The hours flew by with seemingly little progress. Finally at about two o'clock things started looking up. It was early evening before I could finish. I actually don't think the unlucky date had anything to do with my difficulties. Some paintings are just harder than others.

Creek's Edge

Our beautiful warm weather has fallen to a cold wet dreary day. That does not stop the turkey art in this house. Since Mother Nature gave us some needed rain, I decided to put some water in today's painting. I really struggled with the exact pose for the gobbler and the composition. After almost two hours of sketching and layout work, I was finally ready to paint. Not all days go according to schedule. I don't punch a clock anyway!

Step Into Spring

Good grief it's nice out. I'm going out as soon as I finish this. With such beautiful weather today and a possible chance of snow this weekend, I decided to put a little snow in today's painting. I know the gobblers are feeling spring in the air on a day like this. The fun thing about painting snow is I seldom use pure white.( lots of blues, purple, and believe it or not , green)

Evening Glow

Today is gorgeous and very springlike. It even rained a little this morning. I'll bet the turkeys even strutted a little too. Last night as the sun set , the sky in the east was deep blue. The last rays of sunshine on the trees made them really glow. It gave me the idea to try a cool blue background with warm golden colors on the gobbler. I put a touch of light on the leaves and stopped. Less is more!

Twin Pack

Today's a beautiful springlike day. I wanted to do a two bird layout. I couldn't decide on a background, so I just started playing around with some shapes behind the turkeys. The rocky bluff just kind of developed on it's own. I don't always have a plan! I actually came up with the title from a bottle of Heinz ketchup at lunch.

Dawn's Call

I decided this morning to do a gobbling turkey... so ,why not put him in a tree? I had fun with this one . Doing tree bark is fun.

Foggy Hollow

I tried the foggy background today. It was pretty tough. I like it though...that's why you're getting to see it. Tomorrow I'm going dark!

Spring Pines

With the start of a new month, I decided to try a new background--pine trees. During the month of February I'll be trying several types of new backgrounds--but you'll never see them if they don't look good! Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings-- I'll decide at 6AM.