Robert M. Deschenes — Naturalist Wildlife Painter

What the Wildlife Stamp Taught Me

The jury announced a tie. My first reaction wasn’t euphoria, but rather a strange, almost physical sense of relief. It was as if part of me knew the painting deserved to be there, but didn’t dare believe it until someone else said so.

The Quebec Wildlife Foundation’s wildlife stamp contest isn’t your typical exhibition. There are no walls to fill, no opening to organize. The species is chosen by the Foundation—you pick up your brush, but not your subject. It’s a real constraint. And the real question, when you find out, is: how do you get inside an animal you didn’t choose?

This year, it was the wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, a male in spring courtship display. Not a species you often see in Quebec wildlife painting. Deer, moose, snowy owls—yes, they’ve been occupying this territory for a long time. The turkey had to earn its place. I dug through my field notes, photos, and memories of mixed woodlands in the late afternoon. The wheel of feathers on a displaying male is spectacular, but painting the blood-red wattles that swell, the iridescence of the back that shifts with the angle of the sun—that can’t be captured in a single glance. Acrylic doesn’t lie. Every blurred stroke leaves a permanent mark.

Working on an assigned subject, I realized, bypasses the comfort zone. When you choose the animal yourself, you already arrive with a connection. Here, no. You have to build your focus differently, starting from nothing emotional.

I don’t paint to win contests. But when it happens with a subject you’ve been given, it’s a different kind of satisfaction. It’s the work that spoke, not the choice of subject.