It's a pretty common gift around our house. In fact there has been so many prints given to each other for Christmases, birthdays and other events that there really isn't any room left on my parents walls.
A few years ago when I was interning for the Calgary Stampede, I went into one of my coworkers office to discuss a few things. My eye was instantly drawn to a gorgeous print, of a heavy horse, that was hanging in her office. Now 1. I love heavy horses, 2. I had never seen this style of artwork. She told me the print was a gift, but didn't know too much about the artist. When the Calgary Stampede finally came I visited the Show Home. To my delight that year it was decorated in a very western style. Throughout the house were more of these extremely unique pieces of artwork. I remember this one was hanging above a staircase.
"Inevitable"
Two years summers ago my family and I were walking through the Western Art Show at the Stampede, and all of a sudden I saw the prints that I had admired before. Al Nelson Weitzel was the featured artist. I was so excited to finally meet the artist and ask him about his work. Weitzel uses a technique called scratch board, making the subjects seem like their jumping right off of the page. Although, Weitzel is really known for his wildlife portraits, he does a fair bit of heavy horse work and some western prints as well.
"Feathers"
There was one print that especially caught my dad and my eyes. A black calf, that dad said could only be made better if it had a blaze on him. At the time Weitzel only had the original, but had received lots of interest in the print, and was considering making some open edition prints. I crossed my fingers that my wish would come true because I really wanted us to buy that for dad for Christmas. Sure enough we were able to buy the print for dad, but to my surprise there was also one sitting under the tree for me as well. My picture hangs in my office now, and I like knowing that dad and I can both look at our pictures knowing the other one may be doing the same.
My print.
I would definitely encourage you to check out his work www.weitzelart.com.
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