Ron Schaefer has been studying the fine art of animal designs since 1975. Ron’s experience, craftsmanship, professionalism and inherited artistic gift show through in every commissioned piece that is completed.

Ron has no formal art training, he is self taught. Ron believes that an in-depth knowledge of anatomy and animal habits is critical in sculpting. Reference is a priceless tool that few artists have available. With thousands of hours of watching his subjects in nature, all help in composing correct anatomy with three dimension detail with strong compensation.

Ron’s father is born and raised in Germany is a highly respected tool and die engineer and designer. At the age of 12, Ron was working in his father’s tool and die business. Age 14 he worked full time after school, weekends and summer vacation. Age 18 he earned his tool and die degree. Working with such discipline and work ethics and extremely high working tolerances truly reflects in his art work.

Ron’s mother is an artist and so was her father. This artistic talent was obviously inherited and reflects in his art today.

"Art is a burning passion, my mind never rests. I watch and study bone and muscle movement, ear rotation, flickering tails, soft and gentleness, jittery nervous muscles waiting to explode from danger or a predator to catch his prey". I have an extensive network of watching animals from all over the United States from Zoos, animal parks to national forests. Spending the last six summers with my wife in Colorado, Wyoming and Montana we have watched bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, moose, antelope whitetail deer and mule deer. We have witnessed wolfs chasing antelope only seventy five to one hundred yards away. The speed of the antelope won.

Some of my most memorable moments were watching bighorn sheep on a beautiful Wyoming day as rock marmots would try to figure what you were only steps away as the bark of a pika echoes. After three days of heaven on our way out of the mountains ridding on horse back we got hit with a torrential down pour. After riding for three hours in unrelenting rain a sudden mud slide was attempting to surround us. I now understand the meaning of every man for your self. There was a time when the mud slides with four foot boulders grinding into each other were only a horse length away. I never thought of my self as a horseman until your live is on the line.

Another memorable moment is in Arizona glassing desert big horn sheep and seeing two mountain lions bust out from a rock ledge eluding two hikers only twenty yards away and never seeing the mountain lions. On that same trip we glassed up a heard of javelina and we decided to try to get closer for photos and in the process of stalking we wound up with the javelina only paces away before the lead javelina detected my movement and all the javelina responded at the same moment to explode away. WOW how fast they can disappear.

My least favorable moment is being in South Carolina on the Georgia border in the bayou in tidal watered swamps trying to study wild boar and it just happen to be during prime alligator mating season. The mosquitos and horse flies were trying their best to bleed me out. The mud at times up past your ankles and many times having to cross small streams feeding the tidal waters veins and as you enter the water with even deeper mud you see alligators slip into the black murky waters getting your adrenalin pumping hard! We were trying to close in on a heard of hogs but the hogs were feeding faster them we could keep up with out being detected from sound or movement. We were approaching a small island and my guide said, go ahead to the island and I will relive myself and catch up.

As I was approaching the island keeping in mind that the wild boar like to bed down right on the edge on swamp and island. All censes were peaked. Studying every inch you take trying to detect a hair patch, a portion of a leg, an ear twitch and I noticed a string stretched between two trees about 15 feet apart. At first I didn’t pay attention to it then as I followed the string to the tree and notices a hand grenade attached to it. Just as I identified it as a hand grenade my guide caught up and I pointed at the hand grenade. My guide grabbed my shoulder with a vise like grip, leaned in and said drug dealers. I can not describe the ice cold chill that overwhelmed my body. I felt helpless with only a camera and a pocket knife and about four hundred of the hungriest mosquito’s hitching a ride on me. Needless to say we slipped out fast. The word of the lord,’ thanks to be god’.