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Carmen Luna - Biography
Carmen has had a life long love for wildlife and their habitats and began drawing wildlife at a very early age. Until twelve years ago, her favorite medium was watercolors. In 1988 Carmen started a family and found it increasingly difficult to dedicate large blocks of time to painting, so she took up wood carving instead. Carmen found wood sculpting to be very “user friendly”, allowing her to work on pieces as time and demand for family life allowed.
Carmen graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a B.S. degree in Zoology. Since that time she has worked for a natural history museum, biology departments at universities, and a number of wildlife conservation organizations. For the past 23 years Carmen has worked for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as a Biologist and Refuge Manager. She has worked on and managed three National Wildlife Refuges, which over the years have added to her knowledge of wildlife, their habitat, and art, all needed to become and accomplished wildlife artist. Carmen also attributes much of her carving success to her mentors, Mario Marchi and Terry Avila, from California. Thanks to their guidance and willingness to share their knowledge and love for carving Carmen became confident enough to enter her wood carvings in some competitions with great success, and to exhibit her work in art galleries.
She uses tupelo gum to carve the bird and makes the legs, leaves and limbs from copper or brass. The bird sculptures are then painted with acrylic paints. She also constructs her own habitat, but uses habitat sparingly so as not to detract attention from the overall piece. Carmen has a following of collectors in the upper mid-west, the southeast and in California and does a great deal of her work on commission for private collectors.
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