Acrylic Animal Paintings

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"I'm a tough guy, don't mess with me," narrates artist Heather Foster on how she imagines the horse's thoughts. She paints the robust stallion in her alluring...

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Artist Heather Foster paints an impressionist portrait of a brown horse. She takes inspiration from a colt she witnessed at Bishop's Lodge, a small complex on the outskirts of Santa Fe...

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"Great horned owls spend a lot of time sitting and intently watching, rotating their heads to look at whatever interests them, including me," shares artist Emil Morhardt...

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Artist Emil Morhardt captures a sanderling scurrying along the edge of incoming surf. "In a second, he'll turn around and follow ...

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Artist Jessica JH Roller shows a young girl hugging a black cat. Both with striking green eyes, the duo is set against a bright purple background. "Pepper is ...

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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...

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Artist Heather Foster paints a pair of horses along a road that leads to the Galisteo Dam in New Mexico. "The light was amazing at that time of day," recalls Heather. She combines hues that accentuate the cool shadows and warm colors that were quickly fading with the sun. Masterful plays of shadow and light rule this outback acrylic piece.

About the Artist
Artist Heather Foster captures an enduring image of the West. She paints the dramatic landscapes and stalwart animals she encounters on her adventures to ranches and rodeos. Heather says she has always known she wanted to be an artist. As a child, she spent her weekends and summers riding the bus into Philadelphia to attend art classes at Philadelphia College of Art, Moore College of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Over the years, she's moved around the country quite a bit and done many jobs - everything from driving a pedicab (a giant tricycle that transports passengers) to art restoration and conservation (for one project, she unstretched and then restretched a $17 million painting that would not fit through the door of the buyer's house). The one constant though, no matter where she lived or what side jobs she held, she always made space and time to paint. Today, she works from a home studio in Santa Fe...

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Artist Heather Foster encountered this inquisitive subject while painting en plein air. "This nosy California girl wanted to be front and center to see what t...

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

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

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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...

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

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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...

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Willets are usually at the edge of the surf, poking into the wet sand as they follow each wave in and out. This one, when I came on him, was standing above th...

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I wanted to paint a pair of snakes that are intertwined like a puzzle. It is difficult to tell where one ends and one begins.

About the Artist
Kira Yustak paints fantastical scenes that come from her childhood memories, dreams, and the natural world. Each piece feels like part of a larger narrative of an alternative reality, rendered in a style she describes as comic realism. She feels art must trigger something inside the viewer’s soul.Kira currently lives in New Jersey and finds inspiration in the work of Lowbrow, Folk, and Surrealist artists.

Green Snakes...

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"These two glowing marbled godwits are painted at the edge of the surf on a soft late evening on a Santa Barbara beach," sh...

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"This is a calf from a herd I met in Pagosa Springs, Colorado," shares artist Heather Foster. "I wanted the bold underpainting to show through and give a dist...

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"This painting depicts a pair of cheerful woodland creatures," explains artist Kira Yustak. "Two chipmunks scamper around on a log in the forest. It's a great...

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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...