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Here is my newest painting, two bears catching their dinner in a waterfall.

Since I moved to Virginia, I’ve been able to go hiking a handful of times. On one of those trips we almost stumbled across a brown bear. Some hikers in front of us had seen the bear walking across the street so we all grouped together, waited a few minutes, then cautiously continued on the path. I have plenty of respect for this large animal.

I received a request from an old friend to paint longhorns so that’s exactly what I did. My Alma mater, the University of Texas, instilled quite a bit of pride for me within these calm animals. I’m not a cowboy, and I never rode horses to school, but I did see this scene all the time growing up in Texas – sans the tornado of course. Everywhere we drove there were flat fields with either cows, goats, horses, or some other kind of four legged animal. And although tornadoes were a constant threat, I never saw one in person. Burnt orange Texas Longhorns – Hook ‘em!

This is the second dog I’ve painted in my animal series. Pugs, like dachshunds, have a pretty hardcore following. This one, in particular, was inspired by a little guy named Hubert. However, as I found out later, his personality is the opposite of what I’ve shown – tidy and organized. I continue to find myself learning a lot about each animal that I paint.

Zeppelins, blimps, dirigibles, or whatever you want to call them, fascinate me in the same way the Titanic always has. They conjure up old-timey images that I’ve only seen in movies and photos. I even made a painting in college with myself in a newsboy outfit standing on a shipyard in front of a bunch of flying blimps. They have the sense of being both innovative and vintage at the same time.

I really enjoyed coming up with the concept for this new painting. I knew that I wanted to design it around a cloud theme. I included a few birds in the Moose painting prior to this one, and I needed to add something unique. I imagined a flock of birds emerging from a giant cloud formation with a large blimp slowly following. The contrast in size is an interesting visual.

You can check out the painting and some of the closeups here.

I just finished up a commissioned moose piece using a beautiful green color. Just a note – I’ve done quite a few of these animal silhouettes now, and one of the best aspects of working on them is the knowledge I gain while doing the research. The only moose I recall seeing during my life is Bullwinkle, but after gathering photos for this painting I discovered all of the subtleties of this creature.

Just as I began to skim the surface, I learned that there are two types of moose – cow (female) and bull (male). My moose is a bull moose as indicated by its large and intricate antlers. I can’t tell you how many times I redrew the antlers in an attempt to get them to look authentic. Mother Nature definitely went bold when it decided to give us this animal.

Here is the painting for sale at my store. You can also learn more about the moose here.