Living History
“To be a frontiersman, I thought I needed a horse and a rifle,” artist Doug Hall says of his childhood in southwest Missouri, where he did his best to imitate his heroes, Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. That meant spending his days in a tipi in his parents’ backyard and,
Hear the Train Blow
John Coker loves to paint trains—their power and strength, whistles and rumbles. He places those trains in their natural environments, including the rail line it had traveled, and does extensive—and hands-on—research. Before tackling a painting a year ago, he traveled to Colorado, where he took photographs of an empty field
‘It’s Been a Wondrous Career’
Jack Sorenson remembers the day his cowboy lifestyle collided with his dreams of being an artist. He was 9 years old and helping to break a horse on the family’s dude ranch and frontier town located on the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon—not far from Amarillo, Texas. He remembers
Storyteller With a Brush
Patrick Saunders has worked at a variety of jobs, from marketing and teaching to a stint as a Hallmark artist. Today he is a fine artist who paints everything from pet portraits to landscapes to florals. It took quite a while for him to get to where he is today
Following Her Heart
Don’t try to pidgeon-hole Jennifer Johnson—or her art. Her subjects are varied, but her goal with each is the same: to celebrate the past. She captures nature’s vibrancy with bright, bold colors, pays tribute to the charm of the 1930s and 1940s, and shares her love of wildlife. “All of
Born to Be an Artist
“I like to live as much of what I’m going to paint as possible, so I do a wagon train every year,” says Sandpoint, Idaho-based oil painter Julie Jeppsen. She doesn’t mean that she paints a wagon train every year; she means that she organizes and directs an entire real
The Power of Paint
Before Brad Teare was a professional illustrator, before he was an abstract artist, and before he became the revered Western landscape painter he is today, he was the drummer in a rock band that had one particular revelatory night. Gigging in and around Oklahoma and Kansas with a lot of
The Studio
Kyle Polzin’s studio at his home in Austin, Texas, isn’t a grand, architectural space but it suits him just fine. A former study, the room is just off the entryway to the home he shares with his wife Leigh and their two teenage daughters. Surrounded by oak trees, his house
