Untamed Land

Untamed Land
Untamed Land

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Caribou on Comission, second try

Last night I posted an earlier version of this post. For some reason, Blogspot went offline before I was finished refining the post. I'll try to get it right this time.
Last month I was offered a comission to paint some caribou sized 8x20. This past Monday I finally started work on the painting. Last night I completed the piece although I wont varnish it until tomorrow. There are probably some minor adjustments to make before I do varnish it.
This is what I came up with. There are several alternative titles to the painting, but I'm leaning towards the name, Followers of the Wind. The mountains in the background are part of the Alaska Range, near Mt. Mckinley, in Denali Nat. Park.
These are detail photos of the painting.
In order to make this post a little longer, I'll include some older caribou paintings.
Bachelor Pad, 24x36"
Distance, 8x10"
I forget the name of this one, 6x20"
The Brooding Giant, 16x20" The mountain is Mt. Mckinley, the tallest mountain in North America.
The Thoroughfare, 22x28" This is the Thoroughfare River in Denali Nat. Park. I am happy with this painting, and the newest caribou painting. The best painting I have ever done is also a caribou, but I failed to photograph that painting. I do have a 4x5" transparancy of it.
Before I moved to Alaska, I had little appreciation of caribou. I guess they were too far outside my day to day reality. Now that I have had the chance to observe them in nature, and eat them from time to time, I am inspired by their beauty, and taste.

2 comments:

Erik van Elven said...

Wow, that's seriously good.
I like the older paintings as well.

john said...

Thank you for your comments Erik. I felt that this was going to be a ggod one from the first brush stroke.