Classic Brant

I have always been a fan of brant. I love to watch them, carve them, and hunt them, and the subtle colors and their environment appeal to me. It was no fluke that my eye was drawn to this Rowley Horner brant, a real classic of New Jersey decoys. Mr. Horner knew his subject, the shape, the colors, and the way he incorporated them into this decoy. If you ever watched a flock of brant feeding, with the constant movement, the flashing white seems to draw other brant to feed with the flock. I replicated his pattern but with my own dimensions. This carving and painting class was from a class brother Ross and I taught at the Ward World Championships in Ocean City. We used white cedar wood and oil paints as Mr. Horner did, but we distressed the finish to give the decoy the look of use and age.