Welcome to the website of wildlife artist Charles Black Original paintings and drawings of wildlife and custom pet portraits
"Into a New Beginning"
With the Purchase of a new set of Acrylic Paints, I have completed the very first painting of my career. Depicted on the left is the new painting which displays two drake Mallards flying into the sunrise.
Hand-signed prints will be available very soon.
"8th in Federal Duck Stamp Contest"
Thank you for all of you who supported me in my quest to enter the 2009 Federal Duck Stamp Competition. It was a huge success as I was honored to discover that I tied for 8th place out of 224 entries. I could not be happier with the result being this is my first attempt. My painting will be going on tour with the other top ten entries for the next year. I can't wait for next year's competition!
Charles Black is an accomplished Minnesota-based wildlife artist. His work focuses on detailed wildlife drawings and paintings as well as commission work, specifically custom pet portraits. Charles has been given recognition from multiple news publications including Minnesota’s ABC Channel 5 Eyewitness News (See video on the right) and the St. Croix Valley Press (Read More). He is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology at the University of North Dakota, but dreams to one day be a famous wildlife artist.
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"Loyalty" 11x14" Graphite drawing
This is a black labrador I did for a commission recently. I was very pleased with how this one came out. I have been working on a new method to draw the fur and I think this one shows this especially well. I have been blending more then using my pencil which seems to really give a nice softness to the fur which is something I think I was lacking in the past. The nose and collar was a challenge in this piece and required a lot of trial and error to get it the way I wanted. Overall I think this drawing came out just the way I had hoped it would.
"Westward Bound" 8x10" Graphite drawing
This is a commission that I just finished up that depicts a Western Terrier, hence the title "Westward Bound." It was a fun piece to work on. The dog has quite the little smile going on. White hair is something that everyone seems to struggle with quite often, and I am no exception. Drawing lightly colored fur has always been a challenge, but I think I have seen some drastic improvement in my abilities as of late. I use my blending stick much more often which I think creates that sense of softness that is needed to depict the qualities of true hair. I was very pleased with how this came out and I'm excited to start another.
"Risky Raider" 11x14" Graphite drawing
Here is a recent commissioned drawing of a yellow Labrador named Raider. I have been working on some ideas lately to enhance the photo-realism in my drawings without loosing the qualities that presents them as drawings rather than photographs. After all, as an artist, I want the viewer to see my work as an original artwork and not a photo. So with this drawing I have tried a few things that I think turned out very well. Some things included outlining the highlighted areas and highlighting the shadows. I also decided to include a foreground, but not a background. I thought this might bring out the dog a bit more and leave the viewer to imagine the background.
"Caleb's Adventure" 14x18" Graphite drawing
This is a commission I did depicting the moose that a hunter took this past fall. I was given pictures of the hunter with his moose and I essentially brought the moose back to life. I was told that there was a cow and calf with this bull when the hunter took him. So this scene with the cow and calf in the background is supposed to depict the final moments of the hunt. I tried to create a greater field of depth by drawing the foreground and background out of focus. The small strands of grass and fine detail towards the bottom were mostly done with hard pastel.
