Wildlife Calendar Artists

Bruce Miller

Born in Minneapolis in 1952, Bruce Miller showed signs of artistic talent at an early age,  Given a set of acrylic paints for seventh grade art class, he painted exclusively with acrylics until 1999, when he began painting with oils.

Bruce majored in art at St. Cloud State University and expanded his horizons as a world traveler. He returned to Minnesota to seriously pursue his art career in 1975. Miller experimented with a variety of genres including portraits, landscape, abstract and surrealism. Being an avid outdoorsman and Eagle Scout, in 1981 he began painting wildlife.

Bruce has won over 50 awards and been featured at several major art shows in the country and has generated over $10,000,000 for conservation. Conservation of wetlands being paramount in his life.

His work also has won critical acclaim, being selected for the Leigh Yawkey Woodson “Birds in Art” exhibition.  His paintings have won two ‘Award of Excellence’ honors, at the Natureworks art show in Tulsa. He has also won two Artist Choice awards at the Artist Studio and Auction at the Calgary Stampede, most recently in 2014. He also does the Dallas Safari Club show in January and SCI in Las Vegas in February.

His passions outside of art are bird and duck hunting, and fly fishing. He will fly fish for anything he can, but his favorite sport is doing a canoe float and fly fishing for smallmouth bass with popper flies.

Featured Artwork:

Bonnie Marris

Bonnie Marris has been studying and painting wolves, foxes, dogs and horses since childhood. She remembers her family home as a refuge for anyone in trouble, human or animal. Always, when Marris wasn’t around animals, she was painting them and this love led her to pursue degrees in zoology and animal behavior, studying predictors (wolves, big cats, bears, and foxes).

Bonnie also wants to let viewers see each animal she paints as an individual, to connect with its soul. “We all know that our dogs and cats have personalities and their own ways of being,” she says. “Well, this is also true of grizzlies, of horses, of wolves—all nature’s creatures. Once in Alaska, about thirty yards from my campsite, one wolf from a pack of twenty got down on her front elbows and wagged her tail at me in play mode.

Studying color and light, Marris says, has become an obsession with her. “Color sets a mood, an atmosphere that can create feelings ranging from contentment to terror. There are colors within colors, too. The many colors in a shadow, for instance, convey cold or heat. The way light plays with the subject is also very important. Light may dance across snow or water, then lead the eye through the thick fur of a wolf’s neck or flash in the corner of a cougar’s eye.

The passion Bonnie Marris has for wilderness, for animals and for light and color come together in her art and she feels her work has accomplished its purpose when a viewer feels that same passion.

Featured Artwork:

Terry Isaac (1958–2019)

Internationally acclaimed wildlife artist, Terry Isaac, grew up in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, and it is there that he began his love affair with wildlife. Drawing inspiration from his own backyard and from the captivating vistas of the Northwest, he began to create dramatic wildlife art. Terry traveled around the world to capture exciting images, but his main painting focus continued to be on North American birds and mammals.

During his successful professional career Terry has been the featured “Artist of the Year” at a number of prestigious art shows/expos, placed in 12 stamp and print competitions, been commissioned to create for the Audubon Society handbooks and hired to develop the main character in a Walt Disney production. His works are housed in prominent permanent collections such as Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Bennington Center For The Arts, American Airlines, First National Bank of South Africa and in many private and corporate collections around the world. His paintings have appeared for sale and re-sale at Christies Auction House, London, England.

Isaac participated in several important art competitions, including Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum’s prestigious “Birds in Art” exhibition, in which his art has been featured 14 times and the Society of Animal Artists annual exhibition. He was invited to participate in a number of prominent gallery art shows on an annual basis.

Terry was an accomplished teacher, teaching annual workshops, with students attending from all over the world. His approach to painting is outlined in his own book “Painting the Drama of Wildlife, Step by Step” now in its second edition and the DVD “Painting Wildlife“ in Acrylic.

Featured Artwork: