The fine oil and watercolor paintings of Eldridge Hardie … fulfill our twentieth century expectation that the sporting artist go beyond animal portraiture to being a competent landscapist and figure painter…Hardie is a skilled translator of ideas – most particularly of  the concept of  “sportsman.”        Susan Hallsten McGarry, Editor, SOUTHWEST ART

Here is Tom Davis’ Gundog column in Sporting Classics magazine about my commission of two-time National Champion German Shorthair Pointer Bitty.  I hope it gives you some idea of what is involved in the process. The column is not available on their site but they kindly gave permission to reproduce it here.

• See Part 1 here: bitty article p.1
• See Part 2 here: bitty article p.2

   Also, I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to everyone, especially the lenders of their paintings, who contributed to making my Art of the Sporting Experience exhibit at The Wildlife Experience such a success. It was truly gratifying to see my work spanning most of my career brought together in such a perfect setting.

PUBLICATIONS ~ My painting Bobwhites and Pointers was on the cover of Quail Forever magazine. Both Upland Almanac and Sporting Classics featured my exhibit at The Wildlife Experience.

SHOWS ~ In November, Collectors Covey’s Miniature Sale & Auction sold both of my paintings. InSight Gallery’s Holiday Small Works Show continues through December 22^nd. I’ll participate for the sixth year at the Prix de West Invitational, in Oklahoma City opening in June.

OTHER ~ I want to remind you I will be making my newsletter and timely updates available by email. If you would like to receive them that way, just sign up on my website.

In addition to my own studio, these fine galleries, The Sportsman’s Gallery in Atlanta and Beaver Creek,CO, InSight Gallery in Fredericksburg,TX, J.N. Bartfield Galleries in New York, and Collectors Covey in Dallas are the principal sources for my paintings.

And finally, please don’t hesitate to visit one of the galleries or to check with me at any time about available work or about a particular subject you have in mind. I would enjoy hearing from you. And one more thing, I’d certainly appreciate it if you would Like my Facebook page.

Winslow Homer was born in 1836 and lived into the twentieth century. I was introduced to the paintings of America’s greatest watercolorist (and one of her greatest painters, period) by my uncle Eldridge King whose own affinity to the medium made Homer his favorite. One Christmas, Uncle El sent our family a beautifully framed print of a Homosassa River fishing scene, so I sort of grew up with Homer. His paintings are truly authentic. He was mostly self-taught and relied on his direct vision rather than that of other artists. Many of his subjects came from his personal experience as an avid fisherman and outdoorsman yet their appeal is universal. Of course, his other work in oil is powerfully immediate and personal, but it is the watercolors that have had the greatest effect on me.

Though the story is mentioned by George Reiger briefly in my book The Paintings of Eldridge Hardie—Art of a Life in Sport, the influence my mother’s brother Eldridge King had on my journey to become a painter can’t be overstated. In 1946 he came to visit our family in El Paso after flying torpedo bombers and Corsairs for the Marines in the South Pacific. I was six and he was twenty-four years old. While with us he painted several watercolors, two of which hang in my living room today. I watched him paint one of them and was “fatally infected.” I had to learn to do that. With the war over, my uncle went on to Chicago and then to New York to become a very successful commercial illustrator. Over the years we would see his work in magazines like Ladies’ Home Journal and Sports Illustrated. He was an avid sports fan and painted covers for NFL game programs. As I was growing up, he gave me a very high quality aluminum watercolor paint box and a book, A Complete Guide to Drawing, Illustrating, Cartooning & Painting, edited by Gene Byrne. I devoured it. It had more to do with my development than any other single book I’ve ever had.

The summer I graduated from high school I visited Uncle El in Connecticut for a week and made daily train trips into Manhattan to his studio and to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frick Museum, and American Museum of Natural History. While I knew I would be an artist, I didn’t know if I’d try to follow in my uncle’s footsteps and become a commercial illustrator. When I made an unfulfilling start in college in El Paso, he told me about Washington University in St. Louis, which had an acclaimed School of Fine Art. After taking a year off and working, I transferred and found just what I needed.

Eldridge King wanted to pursue painting as some of his friends like Tom Hill and Duane Bryers did but found himself unable to break away from his commercial work that paid the bills that supported his family. When I started leaning toward fine art he encouraged me to go for it.  How lucky could a kid be to have a role model like that!