Trailside Museum and Zoo

For the past year I've been developing five designs for the Trailside Museum and Zoo in Bear Mt, New York. They are to be painted in oil (30" x 40"), scanned, and blown up to roughly 6', then mounted on a fence along the back entrance (facing the Bear Mt Bridge).



What a difference eight years makes! I made this poster for Trailside in 2000. They wanted the same design, except a different building. I'm a much better draftsman now, and drawn many bears since.

River Otter

River Otters aren't about to sit still and pose for pictures, so I had to shoot this video for reference. If you pause it in the right place you can see where I got the idea for this design.

Barred Owl

Trailside wanted the owl to be looking towards the viewer. I agree, this is much better the second time around.




The reference I used for this version was probably of an immature Barred Owl. The young ones tend to be fuzzier like seen here.

Box Turtle

The latest version of the Box Turtle panel for the Trailside Museum and Zoo. When the comp is approved, I will do a 30" x 40" oil painting on masonite. Then it will be scanned and transferred to a weather resistant material, enlarged to roughly six feet, and mounted on a fence by the Bear Mountain Bridge.




The earlier version has a running stream in the design. It was brought to my attention that box turtles rarely go near the water, so I had to dry things up a bit. (see above)

Meadow Mouse 3

Meadow Mouse 2

Meadow Mouse meets a box turtle.

Meadow Mouse 1

One of my first digitally generated paintings. I like the soft look that the pastel tool in Painter was giving me. Never used real pastels, always thought I would just wind up with a mess. Not a problem with digital.

The Pirates of the Caribbean

We had a professional model come in and do a photo shoot for our masters class at FIT. She's pretty, but I don't trust her...