"AUTUMN RIVALS"
BY JOHN A. MORROW
Date of Issue - December 17, 2005
Number in Edition - 750
Artist's Proofs
- 50
Framed Size - 16
x 20
Paper - Epson Archival matte
Printed by HMS
Fine Art
Giclee Print
with pigmented Inks
It was in the fall, sometime in
the early 1980's. I was at Blue Mountain Lake photographing a drake wood
duck as he swam in front of a brightly foliaged maple tree. I was
intrigued by the competition between the the trees and the duck for their
spectacular display of color.
I began working on the painting
a few weeks later, I started with the background and decided to get
more reference before doing the detail on the duck. I was teaching art
at the time and one of my students was a hunter and told me that if he got a
drake wood duck he would give it to me to have it mounted. I put the
painting on the back burner and went on to another piece. It wasn't
until the following fall that he brought in a drake and told me it
flew into his car windshield. It was a few years later when I
got the stuffed bird back from the taxidermist. Over the following
years I would work on the painting for a few hours at a time then put it
away not getting back to it for a year or more. I finally finished it
in December of 2005