Waterfowl Festival�
August, 2009 Waterfowl Festival Artist Gallery
Welcome to the Waterfowl Festival's Artist Gallery.  This is the second edition of our e-newsletter featuring a few of the many talented artists, sculptors, and photographers who will be exhibiting at this year's Festival on November 13, 14 and 15.  Hailing from the north, south, east and west, the Waterfowl artists are a varied group with interesting biographies.  We hope you enjoy meeting some of them and learning about their individual talents.
 
This month we introduce Ray Brown, Jr. (artist), Don Rambadt (sculptor),and Mary Konchar (photographer).
 
For more information on this year's event, to buy tickets, or to become a donor, visit us at our website.  
 
Enjoy! 
Ray Brown, Jr.
 
 
ray brown"There is no better feeling than coming home."  That's what Ray Brown says every year when he returns to the Waterfowl Festival to exhibit his artwork at the Tidewater Gallery.  Born and raised in Randallstown, Maryland, Festival week is a chance for him to visit family and friends.  Now living in southern California, he also enjoys coming back to the shore to gather reference for future works, leaving early in the morning with friend and fellow exhibitor and photographer Chris Vigneri, to go to Blackwater National Refuge to shoot images.  He works with pencils as a medium - just ordinary pencils. He relates that many people, after admiring his work, will say "I can't believe you can do that with just a pencil!" He claims that there is "an air of mystery and magic that surrounds painting with oils," but when people see his drawings they know it's just pencil and paper "and are all the more amazed for its familiar simplicity." 
 r brown all ears
 At left, "We're All Ears"
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
More of Ray's work can be found on his website, www.raybrownart.com.
During the Festival, he will be exhibiting in the Tidewater Gallery.
 
 
Below, "Before the Beginning" (left) and "Looking for Bo Peep" (right)
 
 
                                                                  r brown beginningr brown looking for bo peep
Don Rambadt
 
adele earnshawUsing the bird as a point of departure, sculptor Don Rambadt explores the relationship of positive and negative space and manipulates this interplay in mixed metals to give the impression of life and movement. His work, although somewhat abstract, is based on anatomical accuracy. As he explains, "I feel you should have an intimate understanding of your subject matter before you attempt to abstract it. This gives you the freedom to select which characteristics to emphasize or de-emphasize in order to create a certain feeling in the piece." 
 
This year is Don's 11th year at the Waterfowl Festival exhibiting in one of the Sculpture Galleries located at Christ Church.  
 
rambadt workMore of his work can be found on his website, www.donrambadt.com. He is a member of the Society of Animal Artists, Artists for Conservation Foundation, and the North American Falconers Association. He makes his home in Trevor, Wisconsin, and his work can be found in public, private, and corporate collections across North America.
 
"I sculpt because I enjoy the challenge of manipulating space.  I choose birds as my subject matter because they fascinate me to no end," he says. At right, his Willow Flycatcher sculpture proves this point. 
 
                                            
  
              
 
 
Mary Konchar
 
 
konchar osprey
Mary Konchar, who works and lives in Cambridge, Maryland, is relatively new to the Waterfowl Festival enjoying her second year of exhibiting at the Photography Gallery in the Historial Society.
 
Born and raised in West Virginia, she just returned from a 5-week shoot at the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge in the Potomac Highlands area of that state, and hopes to include some of the new work taken there in her display this year.
 
While her main subjects are still birds and wildlife, she's been doing more landscape work as a result of her trip to West Virginia.
 
More of Mary's work can be found at her website.                 
 
 
 
 
  
bald eagle 
                                           
 
 

Waterfowl Festival

November 13, 14, and 15 
 
 
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