Banovich Living What He Paints
"My work has evolved a great deal in recent years, particularly in the way I apply paint to canvas. I hope that I'll still be growing at the same rate 10 years from now." These words by John Banovich appeared in an article by Editor Chuck Wechsler in the March/April,...
James Stroud and South Africa Now
There is nothing meek or ambiguous about a charging elephant, especially when the tusker in question appears to be lunging off a canvas from South African painter James Stroud. Stroud's vivid wildlife portraits are so different from the flat surfaces of most sporting...
The Man Who Knew Ruark Best
"...the most incredibly wonderful, generous, humorous and likable son of a bitch who ever lived." To many discerning readers, Robert Ruark ranks as the finest outdoor writer ever to grace the American literary scene. His enduring fame is linked to three immensely...
Julie Jeppsen Believes Practice Makes Perfect
"...I could do it if I practiced enough." It's not uncommon, upon meeting Julie Jeppsen for the first time, to find yourself doing a double take just a few minutes later. Let's say you're at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in Charleston, South Carolina, one of...
Greg Beecham Wildlife Artist Coming Home
It’s only natural that Greg Beecham should feel as he does. His dad, Tom Beecham...drilled drawing into him before the youngsters years had reached his teens. Greg Beecham’s dusty brown felt hat rides high on his forehead, the way a cowboy sits straight on his horse....
He Wrote On the Heart of the Boy
I had not come here to say good-bye — I already had, and I never would. The Last eleven miles of road were as I remembered. Even these many years later. Each mile — rutted, washed-out and overhung with cypress and oak — had always seemed to be the price we paid to...
John Schoenherr Bold and Beyond
As both sportsman and art lover, my walls battle for either mounted heads or country scenes. Oddly, though, I own no wildlife art. Before visiting John Schoenherr I wasn't sure why. Now I am. Over the years, most wildlife has seemed partisan to me, as though the...
Why I Taught My Boys to be Hunters
It has always seemed to me that any man is a better man for being a hunter. I have said that my hunting has often been solitary; but that was chiefly in the early days. During the last 25 years, I have rarely taken to the woods and fields in the shooting season...
Cole Johnson in Black and White
"You don't decide on a style...you do the work and a style evolves." Over the years, I have had the luck to interview some very talented wildlife artists. A number actually hunted, others did not. In the work of those that did, I discovered another quality, a...
Joshua Spies the Wide World
For Joshua Spies, it's about payback. Across the lonesome, windblown prairie of northern mid-America, locals know him simply as "the kid." On this morning, the prodigal artistic son of Watertown, South Dakota, stands in his studio surrounded by six easel paintings,...