My Inspiration as an Artist
Without a doubt, my father, Howard Munns, was my most powerful inspiration as an artist. His work
was almost entirely wildlife art, plus landscapes, and he tended to work in pastels, watercolor, some wood carvings, and an innovative
acrylic style where he painted on actual slabs of marble and used the grain of the rock as his basic landscape terrain, accenting
it a bit, and then adding animals to the composition.
Pictured below is one such example.
He was not a "tempermental
artist", who uses their artistic endeavor to justify a childish or irresponsible temperment. He was calm, mature, quiet, and he simply
did his artwork with a minimum of temperment or attitude, relying on pure skill and masterful application with an immense knowledge
of his subjects. That lack of temperment, the respect for skillful mastering of techniques and strong familiarity with your subject,
these were the lessons he taught and I found most valuable.
We shared a love of the natural world and wildlife, a love of learning
and books, and a love of unpretentious result instead of lavishly hyped promotion, as the true measure of a fine artist.
He
passed away in 2002, at the age of 91, but he left for us a truly fabulous body of artwork, and I cherish all the pieces I have in
my personal collection. And it is with pleasure that I include this sampling of his artwork in this gallery of mine, and gratefully
acknowledge his much appreciated inspiration to my own work as a wildlife artist.
Bill Munns
There are four
seperate pages grouping his artwork as follows:
