I’m into the final push now to finish the paintings that will be in “Wildlife Art: Field to Studio” at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut from March 31 to May 24. It’s a group exhibition with six of my colleagues, all Signature Members of the Society of Animal Artists who take their inspiration from the field, which in this case includes Mongolia, India and the Himalayas, Central America, Africa, the Rocky Mountain States, the Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound areas. There will be a lot more on the exhibition soon, but if you live near Greenwich, mark your calendars for the opening reception on March 31. It looks like all of the artists will be there!

The painting at the top, “Chronos, Khomyn Tal Takhi Stallion” is of a horse that I saw at Khomyn Tal in western Mongolia this past July. It turns out that he is one of the original 22 horses who were reintroduced there in 2004. Since I was there in 2006, I may have seen him. I had no idea that any of those takhi would still be alive, but there are a number of others besides him.

I photographed the tolai hare at Ikh Nartiin Chuluu Nature Reserve. I’d been trying to get paintable reference of Mongolia’s only native lagomorph (member of the same family that includes rabbits) for years and mostly all I had was them running away after exploding almost at my feet and just about giving me a heart attack. But this one evening at the research camp, I was already sitting up on a rocky slope waiting for argali to come to the spring to drink and this hare hopped out into the great light to nibble on grass and forbs. All I had to do was stay as still as possible and click the shutter. I believe this is the first painting ever done, at least by a western artist, of this species.