Horizontal Animal Paintings

Artist Comments
Artist Brian McCarty presents a view of five wild geese lined up by a river bank. He paints the scene with an impressionistic approach, using light and loose ...

Artist Comments
"This playful reptile rests amongst native flowers and insects," says artist Jessica JH Roller. A happy crocodile comfortably relaxes against a pastel pink ba...

Artist Comments
Artist Emil Morhardt depicts an Elegant Tern and a Forster’s Tern hanging together in the winter shallows of the Santa Barbara beach in California. Their evening reflections ripple above the water highlighted in gold, silver, and copper leaf. "While the Elegant Terns show up in huge flocks, the much smaller Forester’s tern is uncommon in Santa Barbara, and so a treat to see."

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...

Artist Comments
Vibrant butterflies gather around and fly amongst dandelion fluffs floating in the air. Part of artist Natasha Tayles' whimsical series on butterflies. In col...

Artist Comments
"These raucous birds arrive at my Santa Barbara feeder in flocks," shares artist Emil Morhardt. "They shoo away sparrows and hous...

Artist Comments
"This painting was inspired by the idea that we are shaped by outside forces, but remain unchanged, we persist in the face of adversity," says Shao. "It is what makes us human." Shao's energetic paintings of stallions explore and illustrate movement through nature. This work represents an immigrant's journey, filled with strength and perseverance. Shao incorporates both contemporary watercolor and traditional ink calligraphy styles into this series of oil paintings.

About the Artist
Art has been with Shao Yuan Zhang for the majority of his extraordinary, and at times difficult, life journey. Raised in communist China...

Artist Comments
Artist Emil Morhardt paints a glaucous-winged gull lifting off Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. He paints the bird splashing the crystalline water in detailed realism. "These big gulls are unafraid of brown bears, dodging between their legs to grab morsels," says Emil. He highlights the piece with a silvery edge reflecting a dazzlingly sunny day.

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...

Artist Comments
"The Galapágos hawk (Buteo galapagoensis) is the same genus and size as the North American Red-tailed Hawk, but a little darker," explains artist Emil Morhard...

Artist Comments
In swift calligraphic strokes, artist Shao Yuan Zhang paints a jockey riding an energetic stallion thundering through the racetrack. He explores and illustrat...

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Artist John Jaster paints an impressionistic painting of two White Mandarin ducks. He displays them with their reflections swirling in the water. With intrica...

Artist Comments
"These two long-billed curlews are gazing at us with an unmistakable curiosity," says artist Emil Morhardt. "Like many shorebirds, when I sat on the beach qui...

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"A New Kingdom was created through the idea of coming and going, moving through new thresholds, from one paradise to the next," exp...

Artist Comments
Emil Morhardt photographed this tern from the National Geographic Orion cruise ship off Tahiti in May 2019. These birds, he says, are large, beautiful, extrem...

Artist Comments
A bold impressionistic painting of a Mandarin duck gliding across a pond with its swirling reflections rippling in the water by artist John Jaster...

Artist Comments
Long-Billed Curlews, some of the largest of the shorebirds, often hang out together, milling around at the edge of the surf, then wading in to feed. I spotted...