Pete’s Dippers

Limited Edition Print
Edition of 950 S/N
Image: 18″ x 20″
Overall: 24″ x 25″
$85

75 Artist Proofs available with original watercolor remarques.
$175

When I used to hunt ducks I liked to hunt over hand carved decoys, either ones that I made myself, or those made by decoy maker friends. The Buffleheads, or “Dippers” in this painting were made by my friend “Hurricane” Pete Peterson, of Cape Charles Virginia. Pete makes absolutely the finest wooden WORKING decoys available today. Pete has gotten kind of persnickety in his ‘old age’ and “available” now means that you get on a waiting list. Pete’s decoys are kind of like taking the best of the Cobbs, Joe Lincoln and Lee Dudley and blending it all together. They are made one at a time, hollowed out and hand painted. Most of them never see the water. They are simply too nice, and frankly too expensive to throw into the bottom of a boat, get covered with mud and ice, get SHOT at (hopefully by accident) and occasionally retrieved by mistake by my partner’s Lab or chewed on by mine. I used them anyway. Pete swears that if you hold one in your hand, a Bufflehead will land on your head. I don’t know about that but I have actually seen live ducks courting these wooden counterfeits.

I have a fair number of old decoys in my home and studio, but I enjoy Pete’s decoys so much that even when I was hunting, as soon as the season ended I used to remove the anchor lines, clean off the accumulated muck and put them in a basket on the hearth. Now, that is their permanent place in the house. If it is possible for wooden birds to have personalities, these guys certainly do. One day I looked at that basket of “Dippers” and the idea for the painting hit me. I hardly had to change anything; I just set the basket on an old chest in my studio, put a light on it, and went to work. Not all paintings are fun to do; this one surely was and I’m glad to be able to share it with you as a limited edition print.