Archives for Oil

The Studio of Michael Blessing

The Studio of Michael Blessing

October 12, 2023 | by

Michael Blessing is working on a big project that he expects to complete next year. When it’s done, his evolution as an artist will hit a new level. Actually, it will hit two levels. Currently, it’s still in the blueprint stage—a two-level home studio with a view of the Alaska Mountain Range near Anchorage. By the fall of 2024, Blessing will be creating works in a space where Alaska is on permanent display through picture windows revealing a breathtaking panorama that includes both the mountains and the ocean. Read the full article in the November/December 2023 issue. Sentinel Oil 30″
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Peaceful, Spiritual Paintings

Peaceful, Spiritual Paintings

October 12, 2023 | by

In November, Jane Hunt expects to move into her “dream studio” in her family’s home outside of Boulder, Colorado. Building it has been a three-year process, and she’s more than excited to leave behind the small, temporary space she’s been using. It isn’t just the open floor plan and the additional space for new, larger easels that Hunt is anticipating. “The thing I’m most excited about is the view,” she says. “The studio is on the very top of my house, which is on the very top of a mountain so the view is just amazing. It’s a vista as
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Striking Gold

Striking Gold

October 12, 2023 | by

Harper Henry sees gold in everyday things, both figuratively and literally. Her stylized and visually rich depictions of animals and other Western subjects, some of them set against backdrops that incorporate materials such as gold leaf, represent the creative product of someone who is continually collecting and sifting through the things of day-to-day life, as she searches for a telltale glint of something precious. She’s always on the hunt for the proverbial flash in the pan—an expression that had its origin during the Gold Rush, a formative period in the very landscapes that inspire her art. “When an artist is
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Story Teller Extraordinaire

Story Teller Extraordinaire

October 12, 2023 | by

In June of 1973, Clark Kelley Price had just worked a spring roundup in Montana. He had four paintings in his truck and decided to stop at the Jensen Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on his way home to Utah. He was bedraggled, but he entered the gallery and wandered around, admiring the artwork it housed. A staff member approached him and asked, “Are you an artist?” “Yes, I am,” Price responded. “I can tell by the way you’re studying these paintings,” she said. “What kind of art do you do?” Read the full article in the November/December 2023 issue.
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Creating A Legacy

Creating A Legacy

August 10, 2023 | by

Some people follow sports teams, some follow the stock market. Award-winning artist Mark McKenna follows a herd of wild horses that roams the McCullough Peaks not far from where he lives in Cody, Wyoming. “Just last week, I was able to get some great reference shots of this stallion named Sargent, who recently won over a group of horses from another stallion,” says McKenna, who describes Sargent as being mostly black with significant white markings, including a mane that shifts from black to white to black. “If you’ve ever been around a wild horse, they have so much character, especially
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Sharing Her Light

Sharing Her Light

August 10, 2023 | by

“My goal is to show others how I see the world,” says Kwani Povi Winder. “Being an artist has completely changed how I see it; it’s so incredibly colorful.” While she’s always seen the world and its people as a wondrous place, since 2013 Winder has been sharing her visions—whether they be landscapes, people, spiritual images, or animals—through paintings filled with vibrant colors and brilliant light. “I am constantly analyzing everything before my eyes and trying to identify what made me stop and take a second look at something,” she says. “Was it the contrast, the saturation, or maybe the
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Visual Diaries

Visual Diaries

August 10, 2023 | by

“I spent my childhood on the East Coast, but I think I grew up here,” says Western oil painter Scott Yeager. Here refers to Woodland Park, Colorado, where Yeager and his wife Marie have made their home in the shadow of Pikes Peak for the past 15 years, but he could easily be referring to the West as both specific geography and more abstract concept. He’s come of age as an artist in the sagebrush, beside the rivers, on the flanks of the mountains. He’s camped and hiked, he’s hunted and fished, and all of his experiences in nature have
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Embracing the Challenge

Embracing the Challenge

June 15, 2023 | by

Paul Van Ginkel will tell you he’s an all-in kind of guy. Every time he does something, he challenges himself to do it better than ever before. That kind of tenacity and ambition paid off in early March when Van Ginkel, who lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, learned that he’d been nominated for the prestigious Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award. The winner will be honored at a ceremony in September. Although he’s not a stranger to awards—there have been many—he was particularly pleased that his patrons were so insistent on nominating him to be recognized for his outstanding
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‘The Ball Just Kept Rolling’

‘The Ball Just Kept Rolling’

June 15, 2023 | by

Russell Smith’s original career plan was to become an aeronautical engineer so he could design airplanes. That changed after he took a few art classes during his first year of college. “I realized I didn’t want to design them, I wanted to paint them,” he says. And that’s just what he’s been doing for more than 20 years. His depictions of early aircraft—combined with the people and land of the West—are wonderfully crafted and carry with them a captivating energy, excitement, and perspective. His paintings, fueled by an early love of aviation, have earned him several awards but the real
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A Journey Through History

A Journey Through History

June 15, 2023 | by

“I love where we have come from,” says Brian Bateman. “History is the catalyst for all of my work—the men, women, machines, and how they intertwine.” That love of history took hold when he was a young boy and continues to drive him as he captures the past in paintings that feature everything from the West and Native Americans to mountain men and military aircraft. What makes those paintings unique is that he often combines two or more subjects in one painting, and he looks forward to combining aircraft within his Western work. Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Bateman’s initial
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