"Conveying the beautiful essence of animals in art"

Last blog post I gave you a small tour of my studio. Today’s blog post is about my creative mission and explaining that further.

As an artist my creative mission is “conveying the beautiful essence of animals in art.” Many artists draw and paint animals, and why not? Animals are such amazing personalities. I’ve loved animals my whole life and they have been a contributing factor to making me the person and artist that I am.

As someone who loves to put a lot of detail in their art, especially with drawings, I strive to portray all the little details that really can make a drawing come to life. However, I wish to take this a bit further as an artist. Most animals are very intelligent and just because their perception of life and the environment may have a different perspective than ours doesn’t mean that they are any less intelligent than human beings. In that sense it doesn’t matter if it is a dog, a horse or a whale. I sometimes see people mention “oh it’s just an orca” etc… but it isn’t just an orca. It is an extremely intelligent animal with beauty and grace to match its intelligence.

Animals also have their own personality, their own soul, and with my art I try to convey that, whatever the animal. Not just the animal how it looks, or what environment it is in, but also to try and show through my art the personality and the true spirit of that animal. If I can convey the beautiful essence of animals through my art, then I’ve succeeded in my task.

Animals are such an integral part of many of our lives and even more so part of nature and our environment. Their voice needs heard just like ours. It is my hope that my artwork brings you a sense of this and that the art speaks to you like it does to me.

~ Gunilla Wachtel
“Conveying the Beautiful Essence of Animals in Art.”