"In the Glen"
22 x 29" Acrylic on Board, 2008
Bull Elk
$9,000
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Several years ago on a trip through Yellowstone with two artist friends, we stopped by the side of the road and walked a short distance into the forest to watch a bull elk through our binoculars. He was some two hundred feet away, bugling for an unseen female. Much to our surprise, he started working his way towards us, and before we knew it, he was an uncomfortably close ten or fifteen feet away. We were fortunately protected by dense trees, but the experience of being in such close proximity to this impressively large and regal animal inspired “In the Glen.” My goal was to capture not only the beauty of the animal, especially the evocative shapes of his antlers, but to convey the mysterious atmosphere of the forest. As such, much detail is lost to a sense of light and basic impressions, while other areas spin into organic stylization. A footnote to the story is that this poor elk, while certainly impressive from where I was standing, was completely ignored by the female he was attempting to woo and even caught his antlers in the dense vergetation for several frustrating minutes. While I chose to ignore these details and paint him in a more dignified context, my friend and fellow artist Rita Cirillo took the opposite approach, entitling her piece "Inept Elk."
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