Nature Nights: Art of a Life in Sport

Price: Members $5/Non-members $8, please call 720.488.3344 to reserve your space.

Under September Skies

                                                        Out of Nowhere

                                                        After the Runoff

Here are my paintings for the Prix de West Invitational which opens June 8^th in Oklahoma City. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum hosts this art exhibition of over 300 Western paintings and sculpture by the finest contemporary Western artists in the nation. The invited artists bring a diversity of styles to this prestigious event. Works range from historical pieces that reflect the early days of the West, to more contemporary and impressionist works of art. Landscapes, wildlife and illustrative scenes are always highlighted.

Reservations are required for opening activities. This annual exhibition kicks off with two days of seminars on art-related topics and art demonstrations. The weekend culminates with a fixed-price sale and awards banquet.

The Exhibition and Sale continue through August 5, 2012.

From beginning to end it was a banner year for ducks and geese. My earlier posts reported the great duck shooting over decoys with Iris in her retrieving glory. After the holidays the goose hunting came into focus. We were fortunate with the weather—not too much snow with the resulting muddy mess in the fields, but some clouds and wind that made setting up predictable. I feel like we’ve become fairly proficient at arranging our spread of about ten dozen decoys, and at calling and flagging. For me the shooting can always stand some improvement, but I did triple once on a big flock of well-decoyed lesser Canadas. We hunted three days out of four in the last week of the season killing two dozen birds. Iris has taken to her role in the pit or her dog blind and amazes me with her ability to come streaking back with even the greaters. On our final overcast, snow-spitting day we mostly waited for geese to fly but were awed by an incredible day-long flight of mallards and pintails. By the hundreds they streamed over us, milling and landing in our spread. We could have limited several times over if the season were still open for ducks. With half an hour left the geese finally came—a group of five greaters and then two large flocks of lessers calling and circling, locking on us. After the shooting the snow became earnest, trying to coat everything as we raced to pick up. With two days still left in the season we agreed to end on a very satisfying high note. I was comfortably tired to say the least.

While we did manage to find some coveys and some roosters, the field hunting from our layout blinds saved the trip. In fact, it was some of the finest hunting we’ve ever had this side of the Canadian border.

A Complete Guide to Drawing, Illustrating, Cartooning & Painting, Gene Byrne

Winslow Homer books (There are several.)

The Art of Ogden M. Pleissner, Peter Bergh

Sporting Art of Frank W. Benson, Faith Andrews Bedford

The Art of Aiden Lassell Ripley, Stephen O’Brien, Jr.

Francis Lee Jaques-Artist of the Wilderness World, Florence Page Jaques

The Animal Art of Bob Kuhn, Bob Kuhn

Ala Prima, Richard Schmid

Starting with Watercolor, Rowland Hilder

Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting, John F. Carlson

Animal Painting and Anatomy, W. Frank Calderon

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards

An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists, Ellenberger, Baum, Dittrich (revised edition)

The Practice & Science of Drawing, Harold Speed

Oil Painting Techniques & Materials, Harold Speed

A Picture Gallery, Tom Lea

Some hunts you seem to just be paying your dues and then there are mornings like last Sunday. The flights of ducks to our pond beginning at first light were incredible. For over an hour there was never a moment we didn’t have birds working. We’d look each other and say, “Can you believe this?” We passed up many makeable shots waiting for those classic wings-cupped, feet-down, right-over-the-decoys chances. Except for two mallard drakes and a pair of green-winged teal, the rest of our bag were gadwalls. Our Labs were in their glory. After we limited, field dressed our ducks, and had lunch there was plenty of time to scout the pasture creek where we flushed at least two dozen mallards sitting right in front of our blind and more up and down the water there. Mental notes were made for later in the season when the pond is frozen.

A footnote: A friend had scouted the pond the evening before and reported a few hundred ducks on the water. When we arrived in the pre-dawn to set out the decoys, there were no ducks. My guess is that at dusk, the birds moved to one or more of the large reservoirs to roost and were coming back at dawn to feed.  

All Done by 8 O’clock

Saturday’s 82 degree high tied a record for the date. Never mind–the birds flew early and steadily, and by eight o’clock we were picking up with Iris having made 13 retrieves that included marked doubles, some long blinds, a pintail drake, a gadwall drake and hen, a mallard drake and nine teal (mostly greenwings.)