Getting to know a wildlife artist

Growing up in Tuscarawas County in eastern Ohio, local artist Ann Dysinger was studying wildlife at an early age.

After World War II, her father started the county's water conservation district where her father would survey the watershed. He shared his knowledge with his five children, the oldest being Ann.

"My dad being in the watershed, he had and taught us kids about the wildlife and information like what it takes to keep them living, what type of habitat and food they need and how they live," explained Dysinger.

She shared that her family was always outdoors - camping on the lake from April to October, walking through the woods on weekends the campgrounds were closed and hunting during the seasons. "Since I was the oldest, dad would take me hunting. We both had our licenses, and if he took me hunting, we could get more game. With five kids in the family, we ate a lot of wild game!" exclaimed Dysinger.

She started drawing as a 10-year-old. "My grandmother gave me a set of oil pastels for Christmas, and there was a magazine called Fur-Fish-Game. It's still in circulation now and Chuck Ripper would always do the cover. I'd grab it during trips into town and bring it home. Then, I'd go up to my bedroom and I would redraw Chuck Ripper's artwork in my sketchbook with my oil pastels and try to learn how to do things that way."

Then when she was 12 years old, a neighboring farmer hired her to catalog the livestock. "Working with a farm drawing milk cows really encouraged me to do more paintings," said Dysinger. "To register the cows, you had to draw all of the spots. I would draw them for the farmer's registration papers, and he would give me a quarter for each cow. I remember one day I got $12 and thought I was rich!" she laughed.

Dysinger is a self-taught painter; the only "schooling" she had was from her own father. "My dad was my worst critic. He said he wasn't going to hang crappy paintings in his home," she laughed. "When I would draw, he would help me with proportion and tell what was wrong. He's really a hard critic, so you tried really hard not to make a faux pas in front of dad."

Dysinger paints as accurately as she can, right down to the proper number of feathers on a turkey. "When I do a painting, I don't just paint a lion or a giraffe. You have to know what kind of habitat they live in and what they eat so that you have all of the elements in the picture correctly," she noted.  "You have to pay attention to a whole scheme of things like on game birds, they have an exact number of feathers on their primary and their tail feathers. Turkeys always have no more than 18 feathers on their tail, so if you would paint a turkey and put 22 feathers up there, someone is going to notice. I'd be embarrassed if somebody found out; that's why I pay attention to all of the elements."

Dysinger gets her information from researching the animals. She spends time on the over 400 acres of land at Thorn Bottom, taking photographs and observing the animals' physical characteristics and movements.

After taking her reference photographs, Dysinger works to create a narrative to attribute to each piece. "I want my pictures to tell you a story," said Dysinger. "One of the ones that told the best story was The Cat Did It. In the photography, the Brittany (Spaniel) was laying on the ground looking at my son, but when I painted it, I put the dog in a bed of tulips, and then I have a lady standing beside him in a broom and a skirt looking down at him. He's looking up at her, and there are broken tulips all around and I called it The Cat Did It."

The Cat Did It won the People's Choice award this past year in the Richeson75 Animals, Bird and Wildlife show as well as "Best Brittany" and third place in "Best Oil Painting" at the Kansas dog show. She has also won several other awards recently including Best of Show for "Lyin' Lion" at the Irving Art Association's annual juried wildlife exhibit. She has also painted pieces for the Republican National Convention and people in other countries like Italy and New Zealand.

Most recently, Dysinger was honored for her artwork by the state of Ohio. "It was a show put on by the Ohio Arts Council and I got the notice that they were looking for entries to display in the mansion, the governor's residence or the offices. They wanted scenes from Ohio but nothing with people in it, so I sent in some pictures. They had around 600 people enter over one thousand pieces and they chose about 75 to display. I was lucky enough to get the first bedroom in the residence!" exclaimed Dysinger.

Dysinger continues to create artwork in other ways like engraving memorials at Swan Memorials and participating in shows through the Wassenberg Art Center. She looks forward to continuing to create artwork for people to relate to their own personal lives and test her own knowledge of wildlife.