Quarterly Wildlife Artist Feature-Carel P. Brest van Kempen



We are back with yet another exciting Wildlife Artist feature this quarter. First and foremost our Artist for this quarter is a living legend, he is awarded " The Award of Excellence" eight times by Society of Animal Artists. Personally i have been following his blogspot for many years, his knowledge on flora and fauna is immense. His paintings are one of the most unique and breath-taking ones i have come across. 
Without any further delay, lets speak to Carel P. Brest van Kempen, shall we?



Name of the Artist: Carel P. Brest van Kempen
Location:  USA
Date: July 2018
Form of Art: Painting
Contact details: http://www.cpbrestvankempen.com

Dear Sir, could you please share with us how your journey toward art started ? What inspired you to take up art?

I've loved to draw ever since my discovery of the pencil as a very young child. My other great innate passion is wildlife; I've always found wild animals extremely fascinating. I was lucky to have grown up in the country, where I was able to spend all of my spare time exploring and observing the natural world, trying to figure out how it worked. I kept a sketchbook  as a boy and strove to create a comprehensive Audubon-style collection of artworks depicting all of the birds that lived in my area, with notes about their life histories. Alas, this book never developed into anything close at all to comprehensive. In my youth, my skills at drawing and painting were fairly good, but not nearly good enough to pursue art professionally. It wasn't until I was nearly 30 years old that they reached a point where that pursuit seemed worthwhile. At that time I threw everything I had into trying to perfect my craftsmanship and make a living with my artwork, and never looked back.


Stalks--Great Blue Heron  
    Acrylic on illustration board 20" x 40"

May i know what medium do you prefer to work with the most and why?

I understand  the medium of acrylic the best, so it is my favorite. The results I can achieve with acrylic are more satisfying than  the others.  Still, that doesn't stop me from dabbling outside of my most comfortable medium. Rembrandt never used acrylics. The romance of oil paints is compelling and I usually paint one or two oil paintings each year; usually when I feel a looser, more painterly approach is called for. I also enjoy watercolors, especially  for simple portraits. I travel with a small watercolor kit, and use it for color field studies. Another favorite medium is India ink wash. When I was about 20, a large travelling exhibition of paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes visited Salt Lake City, where I live, and it included several beautiful little pieces in this medium. After seeing the show, I immediately went home to try using India ink like watercolor, with initially disappointing results. Since that time, though, I've grown to love painting ink washes. 

Riparian Rashomon--Agami Heron & Brilliant Forest Frog
Acrylic diptych on illustration board  15" x 20"


Please do share about your role as a Mentor for upcoming nature artists?

I try to take Carl Brenders' generosity with me as an example when young artists ask me for advice. When I entered the world of professional wildlife art in the late 1980s, the genre was really monotonous. There was some very masterful work being produced, but very rarely did I see a wildlife painting that looked like something I'd never seen before. Today, things haven't totally changed, but there are now a lot of people trying new, exciting things and depicting a lot more diversity of species than was generally being painted in 1990. It's very gratifying getting to know some of these Young Turks and being in a position to give them a bit of help achieving their ambitious artistic goals. I enjoy teaching, and since I'm largely self-taught, I think have some unusual techniques and ideas that can be applied to other people's techniques with positive outcomes. I've just started offering an online art workshop subscription service on Patreon that I'm hoping will be a useful way to teach art from a distance, where people can study when and where they please.

His Patreon page is here: https://www.patreon.com/hydrocorax

 Biophilia--Tapanuli Orang-utan & Great Flying Lizard
    Acrylic on illustration board  24" x 18

Who is/are your favorite artist/artists?

As a boy, my two favorite art books in my parents' library were a Rembrandt bible and a copy of J. J. Audubon's “Birds of America.” I studied the illustrations in both of those books rigorously, and copied a great many of them. Those two artists were my biggest early artistic influences, and I learned a lot from studying and copying them. When I was eleven years old, my uncle introduced me to the work of Salvador Dalí, which I immediately fell in love with. He became an even bigger influence, and during my teens and early 20s, I tried to use his paranoiac-critical method, trying to pretend I was a second version of  Salvador Dalí who had grown up in Utah, U.S.A., instead of Catalonia. 

Owls of the USA and Canada
    Acrylic on Clayboard  18" x 24"

Could you please tell us more about your conservation work through art?

I think the best thing I can do for conservation as an artist is to try to educate people about the natural world, how it functions and about the nature of the current ecological crisis. Unfortunately, the conservation conversation in the public sphere is dominated by two voices: the voice of corporate interests telling us there is no crisis vs the voice of large conservation organizations who tell us that to avert the crisis we need to send them money, when, more often than not, we could do more good for nature by simply not earning that money in the first place. These voices ignore and drown out the crucial messages of the simple nature of the crisis: that there are too many people consuming too many resources, and displacing huge chunks of biodiversity. An ecosystem that loses its diversity is an ecosystem prone to collapse, and however removed from the global ecosystem many of us may be in our daily lives, it's something we all depend on for our very existence. This, ultimately, is the message that I strive to disseminate.

Northern Cacomistle
Acrylic on illustration board  18" x 24"

Could you share your views on need for a society for nature artists and what can be achieved through such community for artists ?

A society for nature artists is a very beneficial thing. There's strength in numbers, and an organized body of people with common interests can work on their own behalf far more effectively than on their own, like labor unions. The community aspects of these groups are also wonderful. They allow the members to help each other with problems both artistic and professional and to exchange ideas and inspire one another. I believe that great, creative ideas come not so much from brilliant, creative people, but from brilliant, creative communities. 

The Mountain
    Acrylic on paper  16" x 20"

Your top five tips to becoming a good wildlife artist would be?  

1. Observe. Be an artist not just when you're creating, but 24 hours a day. As you're riding a bus or walking down a city street, look at how the light plays on the color of the seat in front of you or in the trees overhead. Imagine how you would depict the things you see.
2. Sketch from life. There's no better exercise than drawing what you see. Drawing animals that are moving forces you to observe quickly and transfer simple gestures to paper. I rarely produce good work from sketching, but every minute I engage in it it's improving my drawing skills.
3. Don't be afraid of failing. For a long time, I was afraid to embark on a painting unless I knew it was something I could pull off. The thought of spending a month working on something that didn't work scared me away from trying it. At one point I realized that it was less important that I create a masterpiece now, and more important that I develop the skills necessary to create real masterpieces in the future. I would never develop those skills unless I started to really challenge myself.
4. Related to the last tip, challenge yourself. Be ambitious with your work and try to take it places you haven't been before.
5. Follow your instincts. Create the work that really excites you. Ignore the advice of others telling you how to create your work if it conflicts with where you want to go with it. There are no rules to art. It's up to you to create your own path.

It is such a honor interacting with you Sir, i would like to thank you kindly for taking time out to patiently answer to all our queries!  Wishing you great success for your upcoming shows. It can't get bigger than this, can't still believe i got a interview with a legend!  

You may subscribe to his Patreon page is here: https://www.patreon.com/hydrocorax
You  may check his artworks on his website : http://www.cpbrestvankempen.com
His blogspot page is here: http://rigorvitae.blogspot.com

We'll be back again with another interview next quarter! Until then, watchout for artworks and discussions on our Facebook group! Artists for Wildlife and Nature .

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