Abstract Impressionist Animal Paintings

Artist Comments
Artist Kira Yustak blends impressionist and primitive approaches in her portrait of a blackbird amongst tall cattails. She draws inspiration from observing them in waterways and marshy areas nearby. Kira paints it larger than life to highlight the feathers and make a bold statement. Her style bears influence from natural history illustrations...

Artist Comments
Artist Jennifer Ross paints a portrait of a bay horse in an orchard of flowering cherry trees. The majestic equine frolics under the blooms of spring. Cool blue terrain envelopes the background, giving the painting a sense of peace and composure. She bases the title on the Japanese haiku by Kobayashi Issa. The entire poem reads "What a strange thing! To be alive beneath cherry blossoms."

About the Artist
Artist Jennifer Ross creates intimate portraits of birds, nests and horses. Jennifer grew up surrounded by the art of her mother and grandfather. Her attempt to follow in their footsteps presented detours, however, and she ended up working in art galleries selling other's work. But her desire to paint continued to grow throughout the years. In 2008, a gift certificate...

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Artist Andres Lopez perceives the harmonic interaction of koi in a fish pond. He paints gestural impressions of their dance-like movements underwater. Their shi...

Artist Comments
"I admire pelicans. They are really sensational birds," shares artist Andres Lopez. "Being lovers of the sea, these birds are not usually seen in any other part...

Artist Comments
Artist Emil Morhardt captures a group of acorn woodpeckers diving together from a tree. “They really do this,” says Emil. He spends hours with his lens trained on the birds as they argue loudly among themselves until finally taking a jump. The woodpeckers are painted on a thick layer of absorbent ground, giving them a slightly three-dimensional appearance against the gray-stained canvas.

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
"This is a loosely painted scene based on a visit to a ranch in Stanley, New Mexico," shares artist Heather Foster. "I think they thought I was going to feed them. Sometimes a group of cattle will see me and run away like they imagine I'm thinking about burgers. But this group was curious and started towards me, with the ones in the distance moving at a quick pace, worried that they might miss out on something. Then we just paused & looked at each other for a bit." Heather captured the moment with her painting vividly portraying the scene. The cattle stand with inquisitive gazes before her. A bright underpainting shows through exemplifying the heat of the day and the amusing instance.

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, painting from thousands of reference photographs she shoots on her travels. Her artwork has been featured in the magazines Southwest Art, American Art Collector, and Western Art Collector, and published in the books Art Journey New Mexico and The Book of the Horse.

Words that describe this painting: ranch, cattle, cow, herd, animal, western, country, countryside, panoramic, New Mexico, impressionism, animals, landscape, western, acrylic painting, purple

Gathering on the Plains...

Artist Comments
"This girl was posing for me on a trip to visit a ranch in Pagosa Springs, Colorado," shares artist Heather Foster. "She looked, to me, as if she was wearing black knee socks...

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A group of large sea lions emerges above calm sea waters just south of Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska. “The great thing about marine mammals swimming aroun...

Artist Comments
"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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"There is that point when kids are looking grown but at the same time still look like the young kids that they are," muses artist Heather Foster. "This guy wa...

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"I had to have my roof replaced last year and to my dismay, a cardinal couple had made a nest on a tree limb that would have been in the way of the roofers taking off old shingles," shares artist Judy Mackey...

Artist Comments
This scene was painted from my imagination. I often get inspired by simple, but special, everyday moments. I used palette knives to create a variety of texture ...

Artist Comments
This painting was inspired by my view from a hotel balcony in Paris. I captured the motion and texture of the moment in my signature style to inspire the view...