Article August 26, 2002 Issue

Nature columnist and artist

By Kim Shippey Sentinel staff

Nature Columnist And Artist Jeff Huntly has been drawing since he was a child. When the teacher was out of the classroom, he would draw huge Frankensteins on the board. Fortunately, the teacher encouraged the art. For the past 40 years, wildlife painting and writing on nature have been his full-time occupation.

Jeff recalls an afternoon in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, where he once spent a whole year studying and painting the wildlife in its authentic background.

"I had parked my car on a dusty track in the bush when I caught a close-up glimpse of an African wild dog, which is a pretty rare sight. They have perfect camouflage—tan, cream, and black blotches all over the body, like the shadows of leaves. They're almost invisible when they stand still in dappled light. No two wild dogs are identical. Every one of them is patterned differently—like fingerprints.