Spotlight for local artists: Michael Brundage

Superb realist: A Columbia City painter and the animals he loves

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The South County Spotlight, Aug 18, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

It takes Michael Brundage 300 hours to make a cat. He does it after work and on the weekends because it’s hard to get paid for 300 hours of artwork. The cats he favors come from all over the world – lions from Africa, tigers and snow leopards from Asia, and panthers and cougars from North America. There aren’t just cats either. There are coyotes and loons and elephants as well.

He spends a lot of time with these animals, working with a colored pencil to render every detail he gleans from photographs, because Brundage, who graduated from Scappoose High School in 1966 and now lives in Columbia City, has seen few in the flesh. He has left the country – the continent even – with the armed services in the late 1960’s. But the animals he saw in North Africa – the snakes, camels and giant bumblebees – don’t appear in his work. The only time he’s seen the exotic animals he favors en vivo was when he and his wife went on the Winston Wildlife Safari.

“Most of these animals won’t stay still long enough to draw,” he said.

But what, besides a rock, could stay still for 300 hours?

That doesn’t stop him from painting and drawing animals with superb realism.

Brundage, said Gibons Gallery owner Larry Gibons, puts the age in the eyes of the elephants.

“I had his work in the gallery and just loved it,” Gibons said. “He’s got the quality – he’s got all the right chops – and fits right in there [with national artists].”

Animals aren’t the only thing he paints. He’s painted his wife’s pansies and roses and even his own children – as clowns. But he’s an animal lover. While he’s an avid hunter, he’s hardly sentimental. He champions the plight of exotic and rare creatures like snow leopards. He fights from his home in Scappoose and his brushes and pencils are his tools of engagement. He learned to wield them at an early age, mainly through long practice. Apart from drawing classes in highschool, he has learned his art chops from his peers.

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