Recently, Bob Hautman turned on one light and then another because he was curious to see if the change in brightness affected the expressions or appearance of the ducks he was painting.

This happened on the farm west of the Twin Cities that has been converted into a wildlife mecca that Hautman shares with his wife, artist Dodie Logue, and Hautman was putting the finishing touches on his entry for the 2024 Federal Duck Stamp.

Hautman, of course, is one of the three famous Hautman brothers – the others being Joe and Jim – who have won the Federal Duck Stamp contest a record 15 times. A family record that will never be broken unless the brothers clone themselves, as I mentioned earlier.

On this day, Bob’s studio is cozy, with no need to stoke the wood stove. The studio, a former chicken coop, overlooks a small wetland and beyond that a grassy lowland that occasionally hosts wood ducks, red-winged blackbirds, deer and other animals. The studio is a cozy place that takes its own time and carries the rhythm of the art itself within it.

“I’ve worked with oils and acrylics, but for the last decade I’ve been painting with gouache, which is sort of a cross between acrylics and watercolors,” Bob said. “Some oils take a year to dry, while acrylics dry quickly. With gouache, I can move around for about an hour after painting.”

Bob, Jim and Joe are two of seven children of Elaine and Tuck Hautman of St. Louis Park. Elaine was a professional artist and Tuck also enjoyed painting, drawing inspiration from the many duck hunts he took on Leech Lake.

Bob has always been creative and his biggest interest as a child was pottery. At school, he would stay after classes to shape clay into bowls and cups. If the time he spent on the potter’s wheel had paid his bills, he might still be throwing clay today.

Instead, after high school, he and Jim started working with hammers and roofs until one day they noticed their mother selling pieces of driftwood on which she had painted ducks.