SANDPOINT — It is hard to ignore the bear in the corner. He looks terribly hungry, for one thing, and that almost maniacal focus in his eyes is unsettling, to say the least.

And while it’s highly unlikely that he will explode from the canvas that wildlife artist Janene Grende is putting the final touches on, there is enough power and pent-p motion in the image to make a person wonder.

Grende has made a widespread name for herself in the realm of wildlife art by capturing just this sort of moment — frozen in time and crackling with energy. Her career as a paid artist started young, when she sold paintings of prized stallions for the horse people living around her hometown of Lewiston.

She was only a teenager then, with a baby daughter of her own to raise. The young mother’s desire to purchase a movie camera in order to save those moments on film led her to put together a Christmas package for prospective art customers. The early attempt at marketing herself as an artist not quite 50 years ago worked and she hasn’t stopped creating since.

“I did it,” the artist said. “I sold about 10 of them. It gave me a taste for the fact that this was a possibility.”

In the beginning, it was all about horses. Still is, in many ways, as Grende remains a devoted equestrian when not at the easel.

“That has been a lifetime thing,” she explained. “All my teachers would tell you that I drew horses on the borders of everything I ever turned in.”

Today, however, it’s this insatiable bear and the multihued trout flashing up out of the rapids that have her undivided attention. With Huey Lewis & The News rocking in the background — “It’s good music for painting fur,” she shares — Grende places small ticks of paint here and there as the bruin grows in brawn.

Her head bounces gently to the music as she paints, her brush moving like a drumstick as one stroke after another adds context to the work. The soundtrack isn’t as necessary when she paints the birds that have been a big part of her notoriety — the result of a national publisher that calls on her for an annual calendar.

“Birds are easy to paint because their feathers have a beginning and an ending,” she said, dipping paint and turning her head a little to the side for a different angle on the bear and fish in front of her. “You finish one feather and move on to the next. But fur — fur goes on forever.”

Grende will leave one small corner of this painting unfinished — a vehicle for show-and-tell when she takes the work down to Coeur d’Alene for the Elk Foundation banquet where the piece will be auctioned off. These organizations welcome the addition of a Janene Grende painting to their fundraising efforts, as some fetch as much as $12,000 before the gavel falls.

“Maybe there’ll be a bidding war,” she said. “You never know.”

To the question of how long it takes to complete a painting like this, she responds: “Forty-five years of experience.”

The trajectory of Grende’s career has had a sharp, upward spike over the past 20-plus years, with commission work, gallery showings and contracts with publishers filling her days. At least, on those days when she buckles down to get it all done.

“I really only need two months on the calendar,” she said. “I try to get things done early, but I’m a procrastinator. On my tombstone, it’ll probably say: ‘She finally met her deadline.’”

Based on the interest in her work, Grende has less time to put things off these days. If her current acclaim came later in the game, it was all part of a master design she crafted as a youngster.

“You have to have a plan — the world’s screwy enough already,” said Grende. “As a kid, I would entertain my parents by telling them all the things I was going to do with my art. And now I’m doing it.”

Far from limiting herself to any one medium, the artist has worked in acrylics, oils, watercolor, silk dye and gouache, creating works on canvas, illustrating children’s books and popping up on best-selling wildlife calendars.

The images are sometimes whimsical, often dramatic and always true to life. That last trait comes from Grende’s ongoing study of each animal’s physiology, as witnessed by the stacks of animal anatomy books around her studio.

“If you’re going to make animals look real — not cartoonish — you’ve got to study them,” she said. “Most people don’t know any of this stuff when they’re looking at it, but, for me, it has to be correct.”

The physical environments in her works are just as realistic, with airbrushed backgrounds that set the stage for subjects cast in crystalline light that plays upon each water droplet or patch of fur. On the painting before her, the bear and fish, along with the explosion of water that separates them, are perfectly backlit, making the scene want to bound from the confines of its as-yet-unframed home.

“His paw, the fish and the bear’s face,” Grende said, tracing a triangle in the air with her paintbrush and explaining that all aspects of the work combine to support that geometric focus. “That’s how you make it dimensional.”

In the past, the artist might have been prodded by consumer preference. Today, she drives it, which suits Grende just fine.

“I don’t take instruction very well — I have this view of what I want to do,” she said. “So now, when I have a gallery show, I do whatever I want.”

It’s the prerogative of the successful artist to call the shots in this way, though it takes a while to get there. That privilege is not lost on Grende, who marks out the creative arc of her career by describing her approach at different ages.

“When you’re young, you have all this drive and enthusiasm,” she said. “At mid-age, you’re always trying to catch up. And at this age, I’m just trying to remember where I put stuff.”

As the Huey Lewis CD reached its end, the artist scooted her chair back from the canvas and looked over her shoulder at the view outside.

“I’ll get this paw done and then go out and ride my horse,” she announced. “I think that riding really helps me paint, because they’re both about balance and rhythm.

“Like painting, the end goal of riding is to make it all flow and look easy,” she added. “But that takes years to do.”

To see Grende’s work and learn more about the artist, visit online at facebook.com/Janene-Grende-Artist.