Welcome to Joe's Studio.
Scroll down to see what's on the easel this week, or visit Joe's ORIGINALS and PRINT galleries to look at finished paintings and printed reproductions of his work.
All images © Joseph Hautman
January 27 , 2012
Pandas! The title is "Chillin Out", but that is not a beer can in the one bear's hand. And the other one is just chewing on a stick.
November 15 , 2011
Lucky enough to win another federal duck stamp contest! I saw the other top entries last weekend at the Easton, MD Waterfowl Festival...had to feel that there were a few others that could have won on a different day. Thank you to all who stopped by in Easton. I'll be in San Bernardino Nov. 19 & 20 for their wildlife art festival .
September 1, 2011
A mostly scenic painting called "Packing Out" is done. The reference is from my elk hunting trip in Montana last fall.
Also, have finished a little landscape with Sandhill Cranes
called "Prairie Memories": 
...And a Hummingbird with Rhododendrons: 
March 31, 2011
The third, and last, in the dog and duck series is a yellow lab.
February 21, 2011
The second dog and duck painting is done, this one has a chocolate lab. I guess he knows the hunt is over since he's not paying much attention to the mallards in the background.
January 17, 2011
The second dog and duck painting ..., in progress. There will be three labrador retrievers in the series.
December 22, 2010
A new series underway. Dogs and ducks. Here is the first in the series:
Also, finished a small quail painting for the Texas Upland Game stamp. Look for prints soon through the Collectors Covey gallery:
October 6, 2010
The bluebird painting finally came together. Then the brothers and I left for three weeks away from civilzation in the mountains of Montana. I would say it was elk hunting but it was really more like a camping vacation with the summer-like weather. No clouds or cold for the last two and a half weeks! So not much hunting action, but we saw lots of raptors, moose, bear, antelope, owls, mountain bluebirds....some grouse and trout, and one swimming vole. When I got back the bluebirds were long gone but this Morning Glory plant was still blooming in the back yard!
August 26, 2010
I am working on a bluebird painting. The idea was to have blue birds and blue flowers and other shades of blue in the background. That was easier to do in theory than in practice. It has been a challenge and I have tried painting several different backgrounds without being able to pull the whole thing together in a harmonious way. I have given up trying to keep the background blue. Here is the current state:
July 26, 2010
Last week I was up at beautiful Lake Vermilion in far northern Minnesota. The fish were not biting but I was able to go swimming off of the rock that inspired this loon painting (which I just finished the week before). The painting is simply titled "Northern Wilderness" and is meant to capture a place beyond where the roads and people go. Obviously the latter is not true of the swimming rock, but it is true that there are no roads within many miles of the place...and we did see many loons diving, running on the water, calling and generally acting goofy within a hundred yards of the rock.
June 25, 2010
I have been raising ducks instead of painting them. One of my wood duck boxes was viciously ransacked by some animal and I salvaged a few intact egss. After about 15 days of incubation in a cardboard box with a light over it, and spraying with water to up the humidity......and getting up in the middle of the night to check the temperature (more fussing than I imagined when the project started), we have a duckling. This one, and the remaining unhatched egg, have been taken to the Wildilife Rehabilitaion Center of Minnesota where they will have company. The lesson - Just say no to putting a wood duck box on a tree, even if it is only a few yards from your bedroom window. Here is a link to better ideas for putting up a wood duck box.
(Photograph)
May 5, 2010
This is the final whitetail deer painting. I spent a lot of time working on the background. As I look at it now it seems that none of the changes are very obvious. The most significant was the repainting of the background in the middle to make it darker.
April 21, 2010
Here I have filled in the background some more, and I changed the position of the buck:
April 13, 2010
I am working on a new whitetail deer painting. It is a misty morning under the oak trees. There happened to be some turkeys in the photos of oak trees I was looking at and I ended up leaving them in the design. Here is how it started:
March 2, 2010
Here is the completed fox family painting " Venturing Out"
February 1, 2010
Last spring we had a litter of baby foxes on the property. I hesitate to call it "a litter" because there were at least three different ages of kits, and all ten (or more) of them seemed to emerge from the same den! Anyway, I've been meaning to paint them. Here is a finished detail:
January 7, 2010
I had bluebirds raising a family in the back yard this summer, and for a long time I have wanted to do a painting of a songbird on the wing. Here is the result- "Summer Morning - Bluebirds": ( Prints of this painting will soon be available. Contact Art Barbarians Gallery for information. 1-763-494-8888 )
October 13, 2009
This painting of horses running free in the mountains is finished.....until someone tells me that "horses don't do that"... or "mountains don't do that!"
September 23, 2009
I have done a little article for young people in the current issue of Minnesota Conservation Volunteer magazine called " Have Fun Painting Ducks". This is a great "donor supported" magazine published by the Minnesota DNR. This is the painting that I used to demonstrate how I paint a duck stamp. The original is available for sale at the Collectors Covey gallery.
August 24, 2009
I've been experimenting .. This "painting" of a grey squirrel started out as a pastel. In order to get more detail I sealed the pastel with acrylic medium and painted over it with acrylic paint.
July 13, 2009
The "jungle painting" from last year has finally been completed. It ended up having 14 different Indian animals in it - and took about 14 times as long to finish as any other painting I've done! The last thing I did is replace the spotted deer, which was originally the central peice of the painting, with a tiger. I like the result better compositionally and it also makes it clear that this is not a realistic scene but more of a fantasy or dream scene.
April 21, 2009
The swan - finished.
April 13, 2009
Here I tried a wild color in the background, then had to tone it down quite a bit:
....
March 30, 2009
I have started a swan painting. Just sketched and the basic lights and darks blocked in. Not very nice at the moment but, hopefully like the ugly duckling!
February 24, 2009
The final painting - except for a title..Chickadees often seem to be the first things to check out something new, like a new bird feeder for example . Here I imagined that the chickadees have just discoverd this antler and are curious about it. Maybe "Curious Duo" or "Dicovery Team" or "Early Explorers"...I think I like the last one. ( October 2009: This original painting can be purchased through the Collectors Covey gallery.)
February 16, 2009
The Chickadees have arrived. Mover the mouse over the antler to see them appear.
February 9 , 2009
OK - So I missed the first week of my resolution. Maybe bi-weekly is better anyway. The new website is back up and, I hope, running smoothly. I have started a new painting using a new kind of paint ( Golden "Open" acrylics). It seems to require a little different technique and a little more patience on my part. The plan is that this whitetail antler will be visited by a couple of curious Chickadees.
