Emil Morhardt

Black Turnstone #3

2019

Artist Comments
Black turnstones are small hyperactive solitary shorebirds that, on Leadbetter Beach in Santa Barbara where they can be found in abundance in early winter, race around with the sanderlings exploring and turning over washed-up seaweed in search of food. They generally stay well above the surf line, preferring, it seems, to stay relatively dry. I painted this one in a characteristic mad dash for no reason I could discern. Painted on deckled edge paper so the piece can either be floated or matted behind glass.

About the Artist
Emil Morhardt is an acrylic painter from Santa Barbara, California who expresses his passion for birds through realistic acrylic paintings. He paints at home in a studio room that has large windows and a north-facing view of the mountains. He observes the animals from this window, watching roadrunners, foxes, bobcats, deer, and coyote run by. Surrounded by this wildlife, Emil paints bird portraits reminiscent of those by artist John James Audubon. He bases his paintings off hundreds of photographs he takes of birds in the wild and at wildlife recovery centers. Emil captures the freedom and inquisitiveness that birds display in the natural world. Before painting birds, he painted landscapes of San Francisco and the Eastern Sierra. Emil was raised in the high desert of California and learned to paint from his father, who was one of the early California watercolorists. Emil has a BA in Zoology from Pomona College and a PhD in Environmental Physiology and Ecology from Rice University. He also was a Professor of Environmental Biology at Claremont McKenna, Scripps, and Pitzer Colleges.

Black Turnstone #3
Emil Morhardt
Watercolor painting on paper
Ready to frame
One-of-a-kind
Signed on front and back
2019
16 in. h x 20 in. w
0 lbs. 3 oz.