Ruth Read is an American artist (painter, photographer and writer) who grew up in Oregon surrounded by animals. In 1971 she married and moved to California, where she still lives. She began taking art lessons in 1999, and began painting beautiful pet portraits as a result of working in and owning a grooming shop.
After a year of taking art classes Ruth enrolled in a small school in Sierra Madre to study oil painting. She read many books on animals and wildlife and applied the knowledge to her paintings.
Pet portraits are still a major passion of Ruth’s. To see some of them you can visit her personal website, Ruth’s Art Gallery. Besides pet portraits Ruth paints a variety of subjects which have been on display in many cities across California.
Enjoy a selection of these wildlife portraits (which are accompanied by Ruth’s comments), and please leave a comment for the artist!
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Heron – This is a painting of a bird inspired by a heron from Sea World in San Diego, CA. He kept going from rock to rock, following Ruth, but keeping his distance.
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Lizard - This lizard was lounging in a fruit basket on the porch of artist’s house in Hawaii. “This little lizard would come right up beside us and eat the little bugs flying around. He was there every evening when we sat around talking. He became very friendly.”
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Butterfly - “Yes, I really like butterflies.”
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Flying Bird -”This heron was flying back and forth making a nest at the animal park.”
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Morning Feast – Ruth loves to paint hummingbirds.
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Gorilla – “This might be my second favorite painting. This Gorilla was so mischievous. You can see it in her body language.”
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Ira’s Pelican – “This just might be my very favorite painting. I fell in love with a photo that my friend Ira Yanick took. He let me paint it, of course it is different than the photo, but I think it turned out really nice.”
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African Crane – Another of the artist’s favorites.
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Hummer – The first part of a set of three hummingbird drawings I thought I should include as the finale to this wonderful series. I hope you enjoyed them all. 
(P.S. This piece is NOT a painting, it is a pencil drawing.)
To see more of Ruth Read’s amazing art work, take a look at her heartfelt photo story, The Swan, the true story of a friendship between an artist and a beautiful swan, that took place in Hawaii.
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Beautiful paintings, Ruth – congratulations!! Your wildlife characters express as much of their personalities as your pet portraits.
My favorite paining was the black and white one. You dont see many of those, but after that one I would definitely like to see more. It must have been pretty hard to find a picture of a humming bird where the wings were visible. Very impressive, this is one of my favorite blogs.
Thank you for the nice comments. The black and white one is a pencil drawing.
My mother always grew this flowering fuchsia bush in Oregon, and I love hummingbirds. After a weekend at Hummingbird Inn in California, I did 3 of them.
Also in Oregon there was a cherry tree park. We loved to go there for picnics.
Thank you for your appreciation. To view more you can go to my web site http://www.ruthsartgallery.com
Very nicely done. I like they way you maintain a realistic quality in your images while bringing out details and colors, enhancing the subject in ways that a photograph wouldn’t.
Wow your paintings are amazing! The butterfly looks like it wants to just fly right out of the page, so real.
Ruth your pictures are truly inspirational. I do truly love Ira’s pelican and am very jealous of your truly superb talent.
Very colorful and professional. I would love to have one or two of these around the house, especially if the painting was of a pet cat.
John,
I do paint pet cats, and dogs, and horses. check out my web page at http://www.ruthsartgallery.com. Send me an e-mail at ruth@ruthsartgallery.com. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoy painting them. I love to paint!
love the paintings, especially the gorilla, you really capture the intelligence of this amazing animal.
Great paintings looks reality. Its simply a treat to watch. I really enjoyed it very much.
Vow its a fantastic piece of painting work. That painting of butterfly was simply mind blowing. Its really a treat for the eyes.
What beautiful paintings. You really capture such beauty in your animals. I especially love your hummingbird. Such wonderful birds and you really captured the beauty wonderfully.
Wow, excellent use of color in these paintings. I especially love Flying Bird, it has an emotional atmosphere and the bird is beautifully illustrated in such a heroic way. Well done.
The portrait you did of my doggie, Amber, is beautiful and captures her spirit. Amber is now gone, but having her portrait is a special remembrance of her! XO
The choice of wild creatures is beautiful. You have chosen some really amazing birds and animals to paint and have done justice to their beauty. The colors and brush strokes are appealing to the eye. I could not help but say wow to the simplicity yeh integrated color schemes of the paintings. My personal favorite is Morning feast. It reminded me of the morning’s beauty and tranquility. Good Job!
Extremely good paintings. I have very rarely seen a website with such a worthy information. Best work you have done Ruth Read. I visited your http://www.ruthsartgallery.com website also… Extremely good collections and all are very neatly categorized… Especially I love that “Wildlife” tab…!! Nice one…!
Thank you kguru1979, we take a great pride in the content we put on this website. It is all created with much thoughtfulness and creativity of the author of each post. I’m glad you found this website worthy and fun and hope to see you around very soon again!
It’s hard to believe Ruth’s only been painting for 10 years. What a talented individual! She has great expression and captures her subjects beautifully. Thanks for sharing, Sandy
Ruth – these are beautiful. I am particularly taken with the expression of the eyes–open and soulful. Thank you for sharing these wonderful portraits with us.
Jeanne
These are really fabulous! I love how you capture the spirit of nature. My fav is the pelican too, he seems to look right into me. The colors are beautiful and the drawing of hummers are very life like, so expressive in pencil. You very talented and inspiring.
Amazing and vibrant colors. The butterfly is especially beautiful with the radiant colors. Very talented.
Great detail, expression. Have to share this with my “artsy” friends!
Thanks Ed, I very much appreciate you helping me spread the word!!
Slike so realisti?ne, a nežne. Ruthina umetnost kaže na poznavanje živali do podrobnosti, a vendar ohranja ?ar slikarjeve domišljije in originalnosti. Za tako upodabljanje pa moraš živali imeti rad.
Izredno mi je vše? “Flying Bird” saj je zelo težko uloviti njegovo neprestano gibanje. Ruth ga je ?udovito prikazala saj spominja na krilatega baletnika.
Translation: These paintings are realistic, yet gentle. Ruth’s art shows that she knows animals in detail and at the same time she preserves her artistic imagination and originality. For this level of creation one has to really love animals. I especially like “Flying Bird” because capturing his continuous movement is difficult. Ruth did an excellent job in painting this bird’s likeness. It’s reminiscent of a winged bale dancer.
Iva’s last blog post..View from the top
Ruth presents a compelling atmosphere in each of her works, where time seems to stand still, and you are drawn into the magic of that moment. I enjoy how the images seem to shimmer with a radiant inner pulse.
Stunning, breath taking…you just captured the most beautiful beautiful animals, stunning in every way!! How talented you are..I am speechless!!
thank you Ruth for your wonderful gift!!
Ruth,
I greatly enjoyed your paintings. Also your beautiful swan photos and your sharing of that almost mystical experience. I’d have to say that my favorite is the pencil drawing of the hummingbird at the end. Or at least it was until I visited your website and saw the beautiful portrait of the mother and baby giraffes!
I have a beautiful mother and baby horse. I will have to contact you at your site to look into the possibility of having them painted.
Karla,
I would love to paint your horses! Please send me some photos. A mom and baby horse is such a wonderful feeling. The giraffes are my husbands favorite and he will not part with them. The painting hangs by his favorite chair where he sits every night. Family members have tried to talk him out of the painting. He won’t budge.
So glad you enjoy this site. I love it too. There are so many great artist coming together.
contact me at 626-203-3114
or ruth@ruthsartgallery.com
The paintings look amazing! And I have to agree with drew roddy, the black and white painting with the bird is the best!
wow…that is really amazing…
hummer is my favourite…i am a big fan of black and white style
Truly masterful. I love humming birds as well.
The artist has captured the very essence if these
lovely animals. Bravo!!!!
Thank you every one for these nice comments! I feel like I am inspired from within and hope to share this inspiration with all.
Ruth,
Your paintings show a high degree of observational skill and knowledge of how color works, but suffer slightly in my opinion from a compositional standpoint. The animals depicted are interesting and pleasurable to look at, however they come at a narrow scope with no context beyond hazy backgrounds or a flower. They almost resemble human portraits, and I believe nature paintings are best represented with more of the actual habitat included.
Overall, very nice paintings.
Wes,
Thank you for your critique!
Wow, This is exciting. At least I know I am getting attention. I only listen to a critique if they are someone whom I respect their art.
You did not leave me a website to checkout so how do I know if you are a good artist.
Actually, this is all in fun and I know there are a lot of people with different views on how art should be painted, or photographed, or whatever form of art they do. Some very famous artist broke a rule now and then.
I don’t follow rules, I only paint from my heart.
I am really happy now because an artist always likes to create conversation. We are creators of many forms.
Thank you for sharing with me.
In my opinion the subject of each piece is the animal, therefore there doesn’t need to be an elaborate, perfectly detailed background. These are paintings about animals, not landscape paintings with animals in them.
Hazy context? I would say the context is perfectly clear. Each animal is in its natural habitat.
These paintings are clearly not anthropomorphic. If you feel that the animals portray more personality it is because the artist has worked with animals most of her life and has a gift in being able to capture their spirit and personalities in her work.
What beautiful work! The last piece, in particular catches my eye. I love how the hummingbird seems like it is about to pop of the picture and fly away!
Your work is so beautiful and inspiring! The colors you use and the way you create such a life-like portrait is really incredible! I love your Lizard, the way you use all the different shades of green are beautiful. Keep up the great work, your truly talented!
Very nice work, Ruth! I love wildlife, and your colors are so vibrant and alive…just like your animals! Keep up the good work!
I really enjoy your work. I used to live in Southern California and I miss the pelicans. I loved to watch their antics at Laguna Beach. Your pelican really captures the personality of these birds.
The gorilla looks both naughty and pensive at the same time.
The pencil drawing of the hummingbird is excellent as well.
Thanks for posting these; they are a treat to look at. I’d love to see more.
My PROFFESIONAL opinion is that you are really doing a beautiful job Ruth! – Congratulations! The peice that stands out to ME is the African Crane! I actually have a photo of one of these birds that *I* have been wanting to paint for a while now. YOUR piece has me inspired! Your use of color NAILS this creature! You knocked it out of the park! I’m going to re- examine my photo when I get back into the studio!
NOW, please tell me how you set up this marketing tool!!…….. Please email me! Great job!
Beautiful realistic work! Love the vibrant vivid colors. My favorite is the hummingbird, but I enjoyed looking at each unique piece of work.
Beautiful paintings. They make me feel very close to the animals,as if I am with them in their habitats. My favorite is the pelican, a glorious rendering of the Louisiana state bird.
My faves are the butterfly (very lifelike) and the pelican. That pelican made me laugh – he has the same expression my 5 year old has when he’s hiding something! The paintings are full of joy – thanks.
Ruth’s nature paintings captures the life of the animals, my daughter Brianna (who is an animal lover) could not get over such great talent. the art works truly come to life!!
Ruth—you have done a wonderful job with both your painting and your photography! I just loved your story with the swan, not to mention the photos you took. Now, when do we see the paintings of the swans?
As for my favorite painting, I have to agree with you…it’s Ira’s Pelican.
I will put this website into my favorites. Thanks for sharing your art.
Very nice work.
Your paintings are just so beautiful. I would love to see how you would paint a giraffe. I bet it would just be wonderful.
You can see Ruth’s painting of a giraffe here: http://www.ruthsartgallery.com/WildLife.htm
You’re right- it is a wonderful painting.
Beautiful paintings. I enjoy your use of colour and technique. What is most appealing are the pictures that you have painted the animals eyes. They show a clear path straight to their soul, it brings so much life to these creatures.
Kelli
Ruth,
Wow, the paintings and pencil drawing are beautiful. My favorite is the Morning Feast. I love hummingbirds and the color in that is awesome!
Your work is amazing!!! I love all the use of color and attention to every detail. These paintings look so real and life like, they look almost like photos instead of paintings. Truely talented. Unbelieveable!!!!
Very nice pictures, the painter surely has talent. The colors used in the paintings are very mesmerizing. Great job.
I am in awe of your talent! I love all the bird paintings as well as the drawing, but what really caught my eye was the life in the gorilla’s eyes! Very nice catch! I think they’re all lovely just the way they are! Thank you for the opportunity to view your work!
Wow, the painting are unbelievable. The colours that that you have used really bring the paintings to life. I also like the effect that the slightly out of focus backgrounds makes the main character stand out so well.
All I can say is your work is amazing
Love your art work love to learn your techniques.
Thank you for sharing with us.
George
Impressive. Blessings.