Many of us could be described as being products of our environment – Gerald Putt sure is.
Putt grew up on the shores of Children’s Lake in Boiling Springs and grew to become an award-winning wildlife artist. Naturally, then, his studio is located right around the corner from the lake with all kinds of waterfowl – the ducks and geese which became the first subjects of his first drawings.
While this Cumberland County native’s first attempts at art were crude, he was learning more than just drawing. His attention to detail, anatomy and expression of his subjects became more and more apparent as he grew. He dabbled with the once-popular paint-by-number sets but wasn’t satisfied with the lack of detail. Once in high school, Putt’s talent was noticed by his art teacher and he was encouraged to enter a wildlife poster contest sponsored by the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs. He used a deer painting by his idol Ned Smith, reworked it during a study hall and took 6th place statewide. He ended up on television and finally decided there may be something to this art thing after all.
Wanting to perfect his talent, he took a correspondence course but never finished. Drawing pirates and monkeys didn’t interest him, but the one thing he credits this course for was teaching him to see. Putt’s work today is full of incredible detail. His birds have the correct colors and proper number of feathers, the attitudes of his animals are true to life, backgrounds of habitat are correct from the plants to the landscapes. He has mastered the difficulty of painting water and has taught this facet of art to other artists.
After graduation from Boiling Springs High School, he went to work for the former Carlisle Tire & Rubber in Carlisle to earn a living but continued to paint. He had been working strictly in oils but started hearing about the new acrylic paints from other artists. The oils took too long to dry and he found he was always dragging his hand through wet paint. The acrylics dried much faster but were less easy to blend. By working faster with the paints he was able to achieve his desired results and he continues today with acrylics almost exclusively.
In 1979, Putt decided his art career would never go anywhere while working at Tire & Rubber, so he quit his job there and went full-time as an artist. The following spring, without a studio of his own, he started attending art shows to showcase his work, selling more and more pieces and attracting the eye of more and more followers. In 1980, while doing a show at the Capital City Mall in Camp Hill, he was approached by a member of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association and invited to join. Here he met other full time artists, including Ned Smith, who encouraged him further.
Putt was chosen to paint the cover art for the Pennsylvania Game News magazine in September, 1981 – a peregrine falcon chasing a wood duck over a marsh. He has since done 35 additional covers, including a pair of mourning doves for the latest issue, May, 2012. He also illustrates two columns inside the magazine each month.
Perhaps Putt’s biggest credentials are his accomplishments in art contests. The list of awards goes on and on. Since 1981, Putt has won the prestigious Pennsylvania Duck Stamp Contest a remarkable nine times. No other artist ever won more than three. He has also won duck stamp contests in North Carolina (five times), Illinois (three), Nevada and Colorado. He is a two-time winner of the Game Commission’s Working Together for Wildlife program and the winner of the 2001 Pennsylvania Elk contest.
He’s won the Best Wildlife Award of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association an incredible nineteen times and the Best Published Art award seventeen times. He has been chosen as Ducks Unlimited Artist of the Year four times; National Artist of the Year for the Ruffed Grouse Society twice; and his art has been included in the national banquet package for the National Wild Turkey Federation.
Putt is in his fifth decade of supporting conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Ruffed Grouse Society, Trout Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, The Wildlands Conservancy and the National Wild Turkey Federation as well as many others. The sale of his art has raised many thousands of dollars for wildlife habitat improvement.
Putt’s studio is housed in a rustic log cabin at 4 Front St. in Boiling Springs. Contact him through his website at www.geralfputt.com or at 717 258-3775 for hours.
