Hey al Agnew

[trythisonemv]

You ever seen this book before ? Paid a dollar for it at auction 

[Al Agnew]

Yep, got it.  I obtained it when I was still a teenager, so I know it's a fairly old book.  I belonged to the Outdoor Life Book Club, and it was one of their selections.  At the time I thought the illustrations were pretty good...now, not so much!

[trythisonemv]

39 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

Yep, got it.  I obtained it when I was still a teenager, so I know it's a fairly old book.  I belonged to the Outdoor Life Book Club, and it was one of their selections.  At the time I thought the illustrations were pretty good...now, not so much!

1964 edition

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

Al, I got a Birthday card from my grandma last year that was one of your illustrations.   I thought it was pretty cool, she had no clue that i knew who you were.   You do some great work!!

[bkbying89]

Al, I was showing my wife your website (Beautiful work by the way. you better get to work, much of it seems to be sold.) though I have known of your work it seems like forever I have been trying to remember when I first saw your work. Did you win the Duck stamp contest way back when? 

[Mitch f]

 

Yep, got it.  I obtained it when I was still a teenager, so I know it's a fairly old book.  

I'd say it's at least 10 years old! ?

[Al Agnew]

 

Al, I was showing my wife your website (Beautiful work by the way. you better get to work, much of it seems to be sold.) though I have known of your work it seems like forever I have been trying to remember when I first saw your work. Did you win the Duck stamp contest way back when? 

Not the duck stamp...I won the MO trout stamp contest twice, back when it was a contest.  I also won a bunch of trout stamp contests in other states.

[Foghorn]

It was really interesting looking at Al's work in school compared to what the rest of us called art work. 

[bkbying89]

 

Not the duck stamp...I won the MO trout stamp contest twice, back when it was a contest.  I also won a bunch of trout stamp contests in other states.

I knew it was a stamp but back then I fished for Smallmouth and hunted ducks. I bought the trout stamp as a donation but not for fishing. Those stamps were beautiful. I wish they still had those.

 

[Al Agnew]

Long time MDC illustrator Charlie Schwartz did the first trout stamp, before they made it a contest.  The next year, the first time it was a contest, Terry Martin won (I did not enter).  The next year, 1983 (for the 1984 stamp) I entered it for the first time and won.  That was actually right when I quit teaching and embarked upon my career as a professional artist, and winning the trout stamp was one of the things that gave me the confidence to give it a try.  Once you won, you couldn't enter again for three years.  When I was eligible again, it was the year that they wanted a theme, something historical about the trout program in the state, so I entered a brown trout lying on wet rocks, and painted what looked like a sepia tone photo of a department employee pouring trout into a stream out of a steel milk barrel, the way they used to stock them, with an old truck with the original MDC emblem on the side panel.  It won (1987 stamp).  That was the last time I entered, so I batted .1000 in MO trout stamp contests.  I also won Nevada's first stamp contest with a lahontan cutthroat, won the California trout stamp contest twice, once with a golden trout and once with a steelhead, and won the Illinois contest with a coho salmon.  I also did the Arkansas stamp once, but it wasn't a contest; I was commissioned to do the painting.  In fact, only once did I enter a trout stamp contest and NOT win, and that one was strange.  It was the first time I entered the Illinois contest, and i'd done what I thought was a very nice underwater scene of a rainbow.  The day of the judging, I got a call.  The guy said, "Well, I've got good news and bad news."  I told him to give it to me.  He said, "the good news is that you tied for first place.  The bad news is that we decided it by flipping a coin, and you lost."