As the colder weather approaches, animal photo opportunities become less plentiful, and that scarcity, real or imagined, makes me want to take more pictures.
Considering I have thousands of neatly organized reference photos I have never used, for well over a hundred animals, running out has never been a problem. But it’s hard to ignore the impulse to stock up, just in case.
Hey, squirrels store way more than they need for the winter, too.
Time ticking was the prime motivation for my trip to the Alberta Birds of Prey Sanctuary in Coaldale last month. Releasing two hawks into the wild was worth the trip alone, but after editing and sorting my pictures, I’ve also got dozens of new photos I can paint from.
Still open until September 30th, Discovery Wildlife Park usually closes from October to the end of April. But during the pandemic, they created a holiday lights drive-through feature. With the worst of the health crisis thankfully over, their impressive Light The Night experience has continued to grow, open this year from November 15th to January 5th.
With winter gift shop stock in mind, they placed a surprising end-of-season order for prints and stickers. I always like to deliver those in person so I have an excuse to take photos.
I had driven to Coaldale in a torrential rainstorm, but that meant great light for pictures when I arrived. In an unwelcome repeat, but with the same result, I drove to Innisfail last week in another storm. When I got there, the weather was so foul I was the only person in the park.
While I had lunch with my zookeeper friend, Serena, a couple of other people arrived. Coincidentally, they were also longtime friends of the park. Rather than the usual bear education presentation we’d seen several times, Serena gave the three of us a behind-the-scenes personal tour and visit with the bears.
Cold, dark, and windy, the rain at least let up for a few hours. While the pictures I got weren’t impressive photographs on their own, some of these shots will be amazing for reference. I’ve written before about how sunny days aren’t great because they can wash out detail in the highlights and shadows, but an overcast day provided some very exciting photos of bear fur and features.
If that weren’t enough, Serena has been hand-raising an orphaned raccoon since he was tiny. Shonna I got to see him earlier this summer, but on this day, he was getting his first look at a much bigger world, as he was let loose for a bit to run and play in a large enclosure. If you’ve ever seen a cat or dog with the zoomies, imagine that with a raccoon. He was having a very good time.
After the park, I took my parents out to dinner in Red Deer and spent the night at their place for a nice, albeit short, visit.
This past week, the cool fall weather has shown up. Though I’m not a fan of the winter that follows, fall is my favourite time of year. The light on the mountains around here is softer and ever-changing, and we get some beautiful sunrises, which I can see from my office window. And when the larches change colour, it’s like somebody spilled brilliant yellow and orange paint all over the place.
Though I generally dislike driving, the route south on Highway 40 through Kananaskis, up to the Highwood Pass is an exception. It’s the highest paved road in Canada and the spectacular scenery is some of the most beautiful in the world. While busy on weekends, self-employment affords me the luxury of going during the week. Thursday was a pretty day for a drive, and even though the larches haven’t changed yet, they’re beginning to. Traffic was light, the weather was great, and I enjoyed the 40-minute climb from Highway 1.
Several years ago, a local photographer told me about Rock Glacier, just off the highway below the Highwood Pass. He had said that if I wanted to see pikas, that was the place. It’s a massive scree slope of rocks, and I can’t even guess how many of the little ‘rock rabbits’ call it home.
It’s hardly a secret, as the site has two extra parking lanes and several Alberta Parks educational signs about the critters.
Their peeping is unmistakable, but it can be hard to see them as they’re very small and perfectly camouflaged among the rocks. It’s only their darting movements that give them away. I’ll admit that chasing them around the rocks is part of the fun. They’ll scurry along routes only they can see, pausing on rocks along their path, perfect for photo ops.
Their primary motivation is food, so they’re usually en route to one of the small patches of grass and vegetation among the rocks, where they’ll stuff their faces before running back to their stash. It’s fun to watch.
The challenge is usually to get a few pictures before they run out of range, but twice on this visit, I was delighted to see one running toward me. With each pause, I’d get a better shot until one eventually ran right by my foot, intent on a patch of green behind me. All I had to do was circle it and take more photos. They didn’t seem to mind my presence as long as I avoided quick movements.
It can get cold up there at 2200m (7200 ft), and I always pack extra layers, but it was a pleasant fall morning, and I only needed a light jacket. On a few visits, there’ve been ten or 12 other people, often photographers with much bigger lenses than my 70-300mm, doing the same thing. But on this visit, I spent an hour and a half crawling over the rocks and snapping pics with the whole place to myself. Nobody else stopped.
On each drive up to Rock Glacier, I usually see black bears or grizzlies, but none this time. They’re likely still low in the valleys, eating as much as possible before winter. But they can show up anywhere around here, and on these excursions, I’ve always got bear spray on my hip. Aside from the above pic of a line of bighorn sheep walking the top of the ridge, I only saw the wildlife I came for.
Though I have kept dozens of pika photos over the years, I’ve always felt I hadn’t quite got the one I wanted, that perfect photo to paint from. I finally got one on this trip, but I haven’t shared it in this post. It’ll just have to be a surprise.
Now, you might be thinking, “I’m seeing plenty of photos lately, but where’s some new artwork on this artist’s website?”
I am working on several pieces and a commission right now. However, taking photos for future paintings is also a big part of my work. I can’t paint ‘cartoony, but real,’ if I don’t know what real looks like, and taking photos always inspires new paintings. Though I often plan to paint a critter and then go looking for reference, it’s frequently the photos that come first, inspiring the paintings that follow.
But I’ve also been working on the group of bears I’ve been chipping away at for some time now. The original plan for this piece was five adult bears sitting at a log in the woods, like a group of friends hanging out and chatting. I drew six of them separately to give myself options.
However, when I dropped and dragged them together into one image, the digital canvas was very long. A long horizontal canvas has appeal for a canvas or metal print. However, from a commercial perspective, it would limit what I could offer for licensing and paper prints.
Once I was pleased with the group layout, I dropped the layer’s opacity and traced over the shapes and basic features. I did this several times, refining with each pass.
Then, I got to work on the shading, detail, expressions, and character. I do that right up until the end of every painting, as personality is the most essential part and is where I have the most fun. And with this painting, I’ve got five faces to discover instead of one.
This piece seems like a family posing for a Sears portrait or the opening of a sitcom like Family Ties or Growing Pains. I’m going to call it ‘The Grizzlies.’
Despite the bright sun, I got some shots of the two black bear cubs. There might be inspiration for a painting or two in the few photos I kept, but I will let them simmer and review them in a few months. My mood and circumstances can colour my perception, so shots that don’t inspire me in August might push the right buttons in January.
Although I prefer to take my own reference photos whenever possible, I am not interested in becoming a professional photographer. Connecting the dots between aperture, shutter speed and ISO and understanding how they work together, it just seems like math and bores the hell out of me.
I know that hook because I have it for drawing and painting. I can spend hours detailing little hairs or working to get the texture of a bear’s nose just right. I am confident that would be incredibly dull for most people.
So, while I revel in learning a photography trick or technique that helps me take better reference, like 
At the end of July, on the day I sent 
Though most of Alberta had been dealing with heavy wildfire smoke that week, it completely cleared up by the time I got to the cabin and stayed that way the whole four days we were there. The temperature even dropped to a comfortable level and we got some welcome rain. In fact, on the first night, it cooled off so much that we wondered if we might need a fire in the wood stove. Given the oppressive heat we’d just escaped, we had no appetite for that. But wearing long pants and a hoodie seemed strange that evening, given how uncomfortable the past month had been.
Even though I couldn’t turn off my busy brain, it was good to get away. We did what we always do: sat around talking, napped on the decks in the afternoon, walked around the large property, and played guitar, cards and Scrabble. Yes, we’re boring old men.
It was a very pretty and delightfully cool morning, and I knew there would be plenty of time to nap on the deck later in the day, so my mood improved. I wandered up the road, spooked a few deer and watched them take off across the neighbour’s newly cut and bailed hayfield. I kept my eyes peeled for other wildlife, hoping for an owl or coyote.
The base of the tree she ran up to escape was twenty feet below me down the steep bank, so her ‘safe height’ now put her at eye level with me as I stood on the road. And she was NOT happy about it.
Though I had done what I could to boost my exposure compensation to account for the dark area in which I was shooting, I needed to keep the shutter speed high to try to capture this quick little marten. In the end, none of the pictures I got were very good, but I enjoyed the moment. I don’t know if I have ever seen a pine marten in the wild, but I was pleased with the early morning treat.
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The paintings I was already working on need to be done by the end of next month so I can order puzzles and products for the markets. Then there are the sketches, paintings and writing for the book, six editorial 
Sure, I’ll bitch about being too busy sometimes, but I chose this. Though the landscape will change, as will the work, and it’s unlikely ever to get easier, I plan to create art as long as possible. I don’t know if I could do anything else, now.
I’m grateful for so many of you who follow my work, comment on my posts or write emails, sending me wildlife pictures and thoughts about something I’ve shared or the artwork in general. With so much content available to us, that anyone volunteers to receive my
This photo always makes me chuckle. That evil-looking stare straight down my lens, the squinting focused eyes, the chunk missing from her ear. She reminds me of a gangster saying, “Come closer. See what happens.”
I’m happy with how it’s turned out so far, and I’m also hoping to offer the finished piece as a puzzle later this year.
So, when I’m working on several paintings at once and more involved pieces featuring multiple animals or more detailed backgrounds, paintings that take much longer than a whimsical head and shoulders portrait can be uncomfortable. It feels like I’m not getting enough done.
The finished piece will be a lot more detailed than the images in progress you see here. But the vision for what I’m trying to achieve is clear in my mind, and I’m having fun discovering each of these faces.
We stayed up waiting for the northern lights Friday, but with none arriving by 11, we retreated to our separate spaces. I’m indeed one of the old guys now.
The next morning, I admitted that just before I knocked on a dark, quiet trailer, I wondered if I was painting a target on my chest. Nobody likes to be woken from a dead sleep. Thankfully, all agreed it was worth it. After all, that’s what Saturday afternoon lawn chair naps are for.
On Saturday, several hummingbirds made rounds at three or four feeders Babe and Sue have around their home. Having never before captured decent shots of these tiny speedsters, I must have learned a few things over the years as I came home with several potential reference photos, more than you see here.
While these photos are edited, of course, that convenient red background is Babe’s little barn garage for his trailer, as a couple of the hummingbirds landed and sat on the safety wire surrounding the deck of the house.
My first instinct is to paint several of these poses, a line of little hummingbirds on the same wire, and devise my own vibrant colour scheme for each bird. I’m sure that seems like sacrilege to any hardcore birders, but my art doesn’t represent reality. I guess I’ll see what happens when I get into it, whenever that might be.
Regardless of how or when I paint from these pics, I enjoyed stalking the quick little critters. The best part about taking wildlife photos strictly for reference is that it doesn’t matter if the backgrounds or lighting aren’t great. Where a wildlife photographer might not see an image worthy of sharing or printing, all I care about is the detail and whether it inspires a possible painting or two.
And that’s my cue to head back to the drawing board. Next time, I’ll have some new artwork to share, or at least some works in progress.
Most years, I’d rather let my birthday go unnoticed, and thankfully, I married someone who feels the same way about hers. If someone mentioned having a birthday ‘party’ for me, my first thought would be, “What the hell did I ever do to you?”
But on the northern border of that same property, nestled beside secluded wetlands, there is another cabin. It’s one room, one bed, solar power for lights, an outhouse, no water and no noise. It’s at the end of a road, behind a gate on private property.
While shovelling snow, I scared a snowshoe hare out from under the deck, and I took that as a good sign. I wanted to see wildlife, even though this critter did not want to see me.
The property owners have become friends over the years, and I like to visit them. While on my daily wanders, I walked up to their place a couple of times, a 5-6 km round trip from where I was staying, as I had no interest in taking the shortest route.
Free to roam more than 300 acres of pasture, wetlands, and forest, I walked close to 20km over 72 hours in snow and sunshine. It was peaceful and very pretty.
In the new fallen snow, fresh moose, coyote, deer and rabbit tracks were all over the place, many of them just hours old. I heard the coyotes at night and in the morning, and that was nice. It’s one of my favourite sounds. I listened to an owl calling two nights in a row. But all I saw were little birds flying here and there, a few ravens, a couple of geese, and that scared little bunny when I first arrived.
I know professional photographers who spend great amounts of time, energy and money to get to remote places, park themselves in a blind, right next to a game trail for hours and days on end, and often come home with little or nothing to show for it.
I spent my birthday by myself, without anyone telling me how I should be celebrating it. I got up early, as I prefer, without walking on eggshells for fear of waking anybody up, which is often the case on cabin visits with friends. I played guitar and sang, fumbled with chord changes, learning songs I didn’t know, without intruding on anyone else’s peace and quiet.
If you’re like me, bombarded daily with negative news and polarized opinions, this noisy world can become overwhelming. It bothers me, and I often wonder, “Why are people so mean to each other?”
It’s a moment of connection between my funny-looking animals and people I’ve never met. I love watching it happen, and it is a reminder that something I created made somebody else’s day a little better, if only for a moment. In a world that often seems nasty, with people intent on highlighting our worst qualities, I create art that makes people smile. I often forget that, but when I do remember, I’m grateful for this ability.
If you know me well, all this might sound hypocritical. I struggle with seeing the good in the world, which often puts me in a dark mood. But just like a smoker knows the habit is unhealthy, it’s worth the effort to try to cut back and eventually quit.
So, to spread some positive feelings around, I created these Wilder Wishes images you see here, from some of 
If one of these happy faces makes the day a little brighter, for you or somebody else, then that makes mine better, too. Sometimes, you’ve got to give a smile to get one back.
My buddy Darrel and I spent five days last week at the cabin we rent in the foothills of central Alberta. Even though our first visit there was in January of 2018, we don’t often go during the winter months.
Back to work, I’m already preparing for the 
You can attribute it to seasonal affective disorder, lack of light, or the extreme cold weather that settled in this week, but January is not my favourite month. I am at my most miserable and misanthropic this time of year, coupled with a short fuse. My jaw has been bugging me for a couple of weeks, a consequence of unconscious clenching and teeth grinding. I’m not sleeping well and have bad dreams.
But at the moment, each 
On the way, there’s a long stretch of paved pathway beside the train tracks. It runs behind another grocery store, recycling drop-off, and Canadian Tire and several ravens hang out in the area, scavenging for scraps.
But when a raven flops down on his back and rolls around in the snow, pausing several times to look right into my lens, it’s hard not to imagine it’s doing it for my benefit. I took quite a few shots of this clown before he (or she) finally got back on his feet.
Thanks to a recent photo tip technique on my friend 
While a professional photographer might deem them unworthy for prints or portfolio pieces, I use the photos strictly for reference, so any flaws don’t matter.
Though I’m struggling to find my creative spark right now, I know it will return as spring gets closer, and my mood will improve with more sunlight and warmer weather. It always does. And should I want to paint more ravens then, I’ll be grateful I forced myself to get out now and that I took my camera with me, even though I didn’t feel like it.