Daniel Butler Honors Big Cypress

When Daniel Butler settled down at his easel to create a tribute to Big Cypress National Preserve as it turns 50, he was drawing from memories of his time spent in the vast swamp, located 22 miles east of Marco Island on U.S. 41. He was also drawing on lessons learned from his father Robert Butler (1943-2014), the famous Florida landscape artist who entered the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004 as one of the 26 Highwaymen Artists. Finally, he was also drawing on the legend of the preserve’s most famous endangered species, the Florida Panther.

“When you think of the Florida Panther,” said Daniel Butler, “you think of a beautiful and elusive creature. But you allow your mind to expand on that, and you start thinking about the landscape the creature lives in. Florida's landscape is also extremely beautiful, and every area is different. In the way the trees grow, the way the water runs and the lay of the land. So, when you're doing a painting like this, you want to capture that whole world. And in this painting, I think I accurately captured the way the marshes are in Florida. In this case the Big Cypress. There's a lot of diversity involved in this. The mother panther is just wandering around at peace in the way Florida used to be. She's got her cubs with her, and they're traveling along this little corridor. They may stop for a drink of water, or they may stop to eat. Who knows? But she's carefully watching over them and making sure they're safe. That's what this painting represents. That's why it's aptly named Ghosts of the Big Cypress: Florida Panthers.”

Butler, 59, feels his father’s presence when he paints. It’s as if Robert Butler is standing over his son’s shoulder, reminding him of the lessons he taught him over a lifetime. Take the beautifully executed Spanish moss hanging on the cypress trees in the painting's foreground. Butler says the trees depicted are about nine years old. He said it took him about that long to learn how to master the art of painting Spanish moss.

"I owe that to my dad,” he said. "Because, like everything else I paint, I have a tendency to over detail it. He would take me out and say, ‘Look at that. Does that moss look structured?’  A young Daniel answered his dad earnestly and eagerly, ‘Yes it does,’ he answered confidently.

"But when you look at it,” Robert told him, “It is loosely structured; you have to remember that you can't paint every little curl in the moss. Just highlight certain areas. Leave the others alone.”

That’s what Daniel Butler did in Ghosts of Big Cypress.

“When I started out, I thought I could paint every little curly area in there,” Daniel said. "That Spanish moss, when you look at it closely, is nothing like what it appears to be at a distance. Spanish moss is intricate, actually. When you get close to it, you begin to see these little curls and little lines and the texture of the moss. You could try to paint this if you want to, and it'll take years and years to get it accurately done and make it look as if it's alive at the same time. So, if you sit back, you observe the moss like my dad taught me. He said, 'You look at that moss. That moss is swaying in the wind. And on the dark side of the moss, it appears to be bluish. That's in the shadow.’"

"Moss overall is a gray color,” Daniel said. "When it hits the sun, it's extremely white in color. So, when you're painting it, you take a fan brush and you allow that fan brush to breathe so it can create spaces in between the moss. You come back later with the script brush. If you're doing a close-up scene, then you begin to create the moss's curves and the little curls that connect. But always remember, leave some space between the moss. And you come back and you highlight it extreme on one side, which means you're going to use your white. And you come back on the dark side and use your browns and blues but keep that pattern going."

Robert Butler was always hands-on with his son and his brothers and sisters, who are also painters.

"'Get some moss off of the tree,’ he used to tell us. 'Just leave it in your room. Come in after school and take a look at it. See what you were missing. Sooner or later, it becomes natural to you.'

“It took me about nine years,” Daniel said, “but now I can just grab any brush that’s in my box and get a pretty accurate rendition.”

Butler bathed Ghosts of Big Cypress in the soft morning light. 

“If you look at this painting,” he said, “the light is beginning to shine on this marsh. So that means there are different areas where the light's going to hit and areas where the light's not going to hit. This is not like 10:00 AM. This is more like 7:30. You're going to get patches of light that will come in and highlight a scene in different areas while other areas are kept mute. Light is directional. You create shadows and you create different hues of the color of greens, blues, browns. The time of day is most important. I think I've done a better job of capturing the light on this one than I have on most of my paintings,” he says with a chuckle. "Because it was so purposeful. I was at ease. I was enjoying this painting.

“When you're out in the woods, and you're wandering around, the sun will come out. It doesn't always shine on everything. It's these little fleeting shafts of sunlight that create interest. That's what's important to capture in the painting. The dark areas add a little character. I know sometimes when I'm painting, it looks like I'm just putting paint on the canvas. But this comes from years of observation. Sooner or later, you begin to learn where to put things and where to leave it alone. I'm not an ultra detailist, but I'm not a minimalist either. I like to leave a lot of space on the canvas. I really do like this painting. This painting could represent me anywhere. I tell you that right now.”

Butler said the panther cubs in the painting have distinct personalities.

"Each individual cub, as with humans,” he said, "it doesn't matter if you have one, two or nine kids, each kid has a different personality. Some are more curious, where some are more straightforward. Some follow the rules and some don't. This painting exhibits two different types of personalities. This cat is not paying attention,” he said, pointing to the lead cub. "He's seeing something on the other side. And this guy is watching his mother. You know that they have different personalities, but the mother has one thought in mind, and that's survival of the cubs. That's why she's going along with a close eye on them. But at the same time, I guarantee you she's alert to any other danger that may present itself. But that's what a mother is for. This little guy here, he probably needs her more than this cat does because he's off into his own world. Because of that personality trait he'll probably experience his first hunt on his own before the other cat will. Why is that? He's just walking around, 'Oh, that looks good, this looks good.' In order for the mother to get his attention, she'll probably have to growl or make some kind of sound to get him reigned back in so he doesn't get in trouble.

The other cub is more dependent on its mother.

“Even if you watch kittens,” he said, "there will be two laying around watching and there will be three running around jumping all over the place and grabbing everything they can see. There's always one that doesn't want to be far away from their mother. And that one cat just absolutely adores her and knows exactly who mother is. And you can see it in their actions. And I felt that the second cat represents that type of personality. Kind of calm and subdued. I thought that was important in this painting. To capture the different animals being themselves."

The placement of the cubs was important to Butler.

"When I look at a painting,” he said, "I don't want the eye to stop moving. If I had put the cubs closer to the center, that would be the only thing you saw, regardless of how beautiful this is. People who study these animals think of them as silent, very elusive and very personal. So you look at the time of day we have here, and this is a perfect traveling time for these animals. They've probably used this same corridor for no telling how many generations. It's a portal for them. It was important for me to capture them coming through there, not as if they're photographs, but like panthers painted in a natural manner. It's a natural thing. So they'll be coming through there. Everything will look calm. Everything will look natural. Like old Florida. I feel we're looking in the window of a prehistoric time. No man has been in that area, just these cats. So they are comfortable in their environment. That's what I see in this painting. It's just natural.”

Butler’s painting of Big Cypress is an impressive 30” x 48”. And appropriately enough, it’s encased in a custom-made pecky cypress frame. 

“Without the frame, the cats seem to be a little reddish,” he said. "They were overwhelming. In other words, they were more cutouts than I intended them to be. Because when I was painting them, I paid attention to the shadows and the light around them to anchor the cats to the landscape. But once this frame entered the picture it began to pull out the reds in the rest of the painting and the browns, and it subdued the cats. I don't know how this happens, but I think it created a fantastic painting instead of just a great painting. I think it created a fantastic painting.”

Butler finds it easy to identify what he is most proud of in Ghosts of Big Cypress.

"The overall composition of the painting,” he said flatly. "I'm proud of the fact that you can see these panthers. You understand exactly what they are. But the beauty is that this landscape is untouched. Even though the panthers are the main focus, it's just untouched. It’s the way Florida used to be. And the beauty I was able to get and to give equal importance to the panthers. It's just the ebb and flow in this painting. It's the harmony, I guess you could call it, in this painting. Harmony between animals and landscape. The animals are like us. They use the Florida landscape to survive. So, the landscape is just as important as the animal itself. That's how these cats live. This painting could stand alone as a landscape." 

Butler feels for a painting to be special, it has to have soul.

“There's plenty of great, fantastic artists,” he said. "The soul of the land, the soul of the landscape is what's important for you to capture. You can sit there and you can draw every blade of grass, every little lily and every piece of bark on these trees. And you get finished with it, and you didn't miss a spot. But do you have soul in that painting? That's the main thing you want to try to capture with the landscape and wildlife. There's a soul to Florida. And the way you capture that soul is to get out there, get in it and experience it. And pay attention to every little thing you see. I think I've done my job. I'm satisfied. This is my life.”

It’s a life that his father led him to. Did Daniel Butler wonder what Robert Butler would have thought of Ghosts of Big Cypress: Florida Panthers?

“Honestly,” Daniel said, "he wouldn't let me sell it. He'd want to sell it himself,” he said with a laugh. "For so many years, dad used to sit behind me on the sofa and before I'd get into a painting 30 minutes, he's got that paint brush. 'Why did you do that? You've gotta understand this!' And then after 30 years, he just watched, you know, and he said, ‘Are you going to sign it or not?' And when I sign it, he's got it and he’s gone to sell it. So that kind of let me know without him telling me that he knew that oohs and ahhs are not what motivate me. He understood that if I've done a good job on a painting, just grab it and go. That's what motivates me. So, I'll do another job and another job and another job."