Convoy Through the Canopy (2000) (Enlarge here). One of the many African monkey species known as "guenons," de Brazza's Monkey (Cercopithecus neglectus) inhabits various types of forest, usually near rivers, from southeastern Cameroon though southern Central African Republic and throughout most of Congo-Kinshasa. In this painting, a large troop moves long a massive fig tree, accompanied by Long-tailed Hornbills and Oil Palm Squirrels. Copyright@ 2006
DarkSyde (DS): How did you become interested in wildlife art?
Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen (CPBK): I didn't "get interested" as much as fail to stop being interested. All kids like to draw animals--I just took it much more seriously than the rest. I always had an overwhelming desire to be able to do it better, and since childhood have put a ridiculous amount of time and effort into honing my skills. I had the good fortune to grow up in a place where I could hike or ride a horse for days without running into human development, and was able to completely indulge my love for exploring the natural world, from the very start. My profession lets me pursue my two great loves, studying nature and painting. I've got it good.
DS: I don't think I've ever seen a wildlife book with this many masterpiece works of art in it. It's every freaking page, there must be hundreds. This isn't something you did in a few months is it? This is your life's work right? How long did this take you?
CPBK: Thanks. This book does represent my life's work. The earliest piece is an eagle painting I did in '88, when I was 30. Up until that time, I was just finding my way artistically, and none of the paintings I did in my teens and 20s were much good. The book includes my best paintings from '88 through early 2003, when I started writing the text, which took me three years. Of course, a lifetime of drawing, observing, and thinking about nature was also put to use. This book pretty much answers the question, "what have you done with your life?" in totality.
The giant silk moths of the family Saturniidea are some of the world's largest and most spectacular moth species, and include the ten-inch Atlas Moth (Attacus atlas). Widespread throughout Asia, the caterpillars of this moth and a number of close relatives are often cultivated for silk production. Copyright@ 2006
DS: You seem to be unusually ...ummm .. 'brave' when it comes to collecting, handling, and even tasting wildlife: Ten-inch centipedes, giant spiders, a monitor lizard that clamped down on your finger and dragged you around the apartment for fifteen minutes. You described it as 'having you finger caught in a nutcracker lined with thumbtacks' I believe. Have you ever been badly stung, poisoned, or bitten?
CPBK: Go ahead, you can say it..."stupid"...or at least reckless. Yes, I'm guilty. My instinct to get a better look at something often overpowers my common sense. I remember canoeing through some Florida mangrove swamps, and picking up some kind of beautiful marine snail I saw on the ocean floor before it occurred to me that some of those things are dangerously venomous. I'm pretty lucky to have never had a really bad experience (knock on wood), although the menace of wild animals tends to be hugely exaggerated. It's best to play it safe with things you don't know well. That's a lesson I'm still working on getting the hang of.
In the jungles of the upper Amazon Basin, the poison frog genus Dentrobates is represented by a complex of red or yellow and black frogs currently undergoing a systematical revision. Poison 'dart' frogs native to the American tropics are so named for the alkaloid secretions protecting most species. Copyright@ 2006
DS: I take it the color scheme of these frogs is a big advertisement to potential predators saying "Touch me and you die". What are the challenges involved in getting the pigment[s] accurate to render works of art like this?
CPBK: Yep, "aposematic coloring" is the technical term for that advertisement, and it's a really common thing among smaller animals. You simply can't be a good representational painter unless you understand color. Mixing your pigments to achieve the same color that you see on the back of a frog is pretty easy. The real challenge (and fun) comes in using variations of that color to give the thing shape, and to make it look moist or dry, make it look like it's in bright, dim, or dappled light. Then there's the added dimension of using other colors in the rest of the painting to affect the overall mood of the piece and the way the subject(s) and the environment interact.
(Enlarge here) Red River Hogs & Gaboon Viper. Red River Hog is the moniker usually given to the rust-colored form of Bush-pig [Yes, I know the temptation for a dig here at another type of Bush-pig is overwhelming, I shall resist--DS] (Potamochoerus porcus) that occurs in the forest of West Africa. Copyright@ 2006
DS: I assume those hogs better watch the hell out. That snake is highly venomous?
CPBK: Yeah, Gaboon Vipers are really venomous, not to mention the fact that their huge size gives them the ability to really deliver a good dose of venom. A bite from this snake would be bad news indeed for one of the bushpigs...still, my money is on the pigs. This painting gives me a chance to talk about how composition can work. The pig on the right is the main subject, and his weight is centered on an extended forefoot. He looks like he could be moving toward the snake or away; you really can't tell. The sloping snouts of the three pigs form lines that radiate out from the snake, which enhance this effect, as do the diagonal lines formed by the vines and tree root behind the main pig. The overall effect is meant to focus on the pig's ambivalence. He wants to charge the snake, but he's also afraid of it. I painted the snake from drawings I did from life at a zoo. At the time I painted this, I was unable to come up with many materials on the Red River Hogs, but I think I managed to nail them pretty accurately. Knowing how vertebrates are built and how they move is more valuable than having a lot of good reference material. I used two black and white photos from books to work out my pig drawings for this piece. Of course, it would have been nice to have had a lot more information, but those two photos, and some written descriptions, gave me everything I really needed to know.
I like to put interesting incidental animals and plants in my backgrounds. In this painting I went a bit overboard--there are a total of around 30 animals in it.
(Enlarge greatly)
DarkSyde (DS): Well I wish I could feature more, but it would destroy our bandwidth! In closing, what advice can you provide for talented young artists out there who dream of a career in art?
CPBK: A couple of things: First of all, don't pay too much attention to what other artists are doing. Too many artists try to emulate the work of others who've had some success, which results in a kind of "echo chamber" that's really boring. Following the latest artistic trends is a sure way of being nothing more than a face in the crowd, and of producing meaningless work.
The second piece of advice is not to be afraid of failure. I used to fear being too ambitious with my work. "Why spend a month on a painting, when you're not sure you can pull it off?" I used to think. Once I realized how much more you learn from spending a month on an ambitious work that fails, my growth as an artist really began.
Smoke Jumper--Aplomado Falcon (1994). Prior to reaping, sugar cane rows are burned to facilitate harvesting. The flames send many insects, rodents, and other little creatures scurrying for their lives, and small agile raptors like the Neotropical Aplomado Falcon (Falco femoralis) quickly learned to associate these seasonal fires with easy hunting. Copyright@ 2006
Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen is a free-lance wildlife artist and author of Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding from Eagle Mountain Publishing, LC. Carel grew up in Emigration Canyon, Utah, an ideal place to walk and explore and indulge his youthful fascination for the wild and its varied inhabitants. He adds "I'm a failed field biologist with credentials to be a street sweeper, NASA spokesman, or wildlife artist. Settled for the third option." You can see more of Carel's work at his homepage or his Blog. Both are well worth the look!
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