Carl Brenders’ love for all creatures, from the friendly to the ferocious, is evident in his masterful attention to their every detail; nothing is overlooked. With his imagination, Brenders is able to get close enough to wild animals so that he can almost feel their textures. Consequently, his work has a tactile reality, giving us the sense of having been where even the most intrepid of field guides have not ventured. Of this ability Brenders says, “A painter is a privileged being, because in his imagination he can come very close to the animals he paints. In reality, one can never come this close to wild animals, particularly if they are predators.”

Brenders’ insistence on anatomical perfection in his paintings stems from his philosophy that nature, itself, is perfection: “That is why I paint the way I do with so much detail and so much realism — I want to capture that perfection,” he says.

The wildlife images of Brenders’ art are first created from pencil sketches; from these sketches his mixed media paintings of watercolor and gouache are completed with a technique he has developed during the last 25 years. His paintings, encompassing every intricacy of nature, devote equal attention to the detail of the wildlife subject and its habitat as well as to the mood created by the light.Courtesy Mill Press Pond