ARTICLE FEATURES CANADIAN WHITE-TAILED DEER COIN ARTIST

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V17 2014 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 17, Number 33, August 10, 2014, Article 15

Local newspapers are often a good source of information on designers of new coins. Here's an excerpt from a recent article in the Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune about Desmond McCaffrey, the artist behind the design of Canada's new $20 silver coin featuring the white-tailed deer. -Editor

A white-tailed deer drawing by local wildlife artist Desmond McCaffrey is being featured on a new Canadian coin.

The $20 face-value collector coin, created by the Royal Canadian Mint, launched on Aug. 5. It is the first of four coins with white-tailed deer drawings being released between August and November.

“It’s so in my wheelhouse to put it bluntly,” said McCaffrey, whose studio featuring his Western Canadian wildlife paintings is located just east of Clairmont Lake. “It’s one of the subjects I love to do along with elk, bear, moose and just animals we have in this area. To have it sort of immortalized on a coin like that was really an honour.”

McCaffrey also designed a second coin for the white-tailed deer series. He said the Royal Canadian Mint contacted him about a year ago to submit two pieces.

“I assume they had seen some of my work on my website and some of the other animals I had done,” said McCaffrey. “And they liked the way the animals were drawn and rendered and just the actual size of them in proportion to the backgrounds.”

The Royal Canadian Mint let him know they were looking at other artists around the country and the competition was stiff. But approximately four weeks later, McCaffrey got the call that they had selected both of his drawings.

Submitting the pencil drawings took about a month as McCaffrey made some changes to the background and went back and forth with the designers at the mint. White-tailed deer experts and biologists looked at the drawing to make sure the anatomy was correct. After, the coins were signed off by the Finance Minister then engraved at the mint.

“There was a financial part to it for sure. It was really good and I’m very happy with that end of it but it was more to me just going through the process and having been selected even was more than that to me,” said McCaffrey.

While designing a coin for the Royal Canadian Mint is a new experience, drawing animals is not. McCaffrey has been a full-time wildlife artist for 25 years but his love for drawing animals started as a kid.

To read the complete article, see: Work of local artist featured on new silver coin (www.dailyheraldtribune.com/2014/08/07/work-of-local-artist-featured-on-new-silver-coin)

Wayne Homren, Editor