Archives for Oil

The Studio of Don Oelze

The Studio of Don Oelze

April 7, 2025 | by

Some days, Don Oelze’s studio, tucked into a ponderosa forest under a mound of artistic boulders, resembles a movie studio as much as a painting studio. “I have a couple of really big photo shoots at my house every year,” Oelze says, adding that other artists join him for those shoots, which include models in authentic costumes and horses and a wagon outside on a hill. Oelze’s studio is divided into two halves in a 1,400-square-foot outbuilding that is just feet from his house. He currently paints in what he calls Studio B, while most of the props, costumes, and
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Plein Air Ambassador

Plein Air Ambassador

April 7, 2025 | by

Colorado Springs-based oil painter Kathleen Hudson’s hands are full. She has a thriving art career with a shelf of awards and a loyal following of collectors to show for it. She’s a mother of four children and takes joy in introducing them to the natural wonders that inspire her work. She’s also an avid traveler, continually on the lookout for new seas, skies, and mountains to depict in her epic landscape paintings. Hudson’s love for exploration is woven into both her personal life and her artistic vision. In college, she led backpacking trips through the White Mountains of New Hampshire,
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Dogs, Landscapes, and More

Dogs, Landscapes, and More

April 7, 2025 | by

Every now and then, James Swanson, who lives in LaGrange Park, Illinois, likes to spend time at a lake near his cottage in Michigan. He takes his two dogs—Bjorn, an English cream golden retriever, and Fenrir, a golden retriever—with him and throws tennis balls for them to chase. For them, it’s purely fun. For Swanson, however, it’s all work. Every time he throws the ball, he aims it in a different direction or to a different depth. He throws it from the dock. Sometimes, he gets into the water himself. He does whatever it takes to to get a new
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Electric Americana

Electric Americana

April 7, 2025 | by

Colt Idol is hard at work in the studio at his home in Whitefish, Montana. That’s not surprising, but what is surprising is that he’s surrounded by 21 paintings on the floor and hanging on the walls in a U-shape around him. “Right now, I have 21 pieces in the works,” he says. “Some artists work in a more linear fashion, but I like to spend about three hours on a piece and then go on to another. I work on four or five pieces each day; it helps me get a stronger end piece by spending time with it.
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Unsung Heroes

Unsung Heroes

April 7, 2025 | by

Creativity has always been the name of the game for Sean Michael Chavez. From a young age, he was driven to study and practice one art form or another—music, writing, design, painting. “I’ve always lived a life centered around creativity,” he says. “I’ve always been an artist and, looking back, to have become a professional artist seems to have been inevitable. It was my path.” That pursuit took Chavez to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1990, the year he graduated from high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He wanted to learn more about himself, about the East Coast, and about art, so
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Quiet, Peaceful, and Contemplative

Quiet, Peaceful, and Contemplative

April 7, 2025 | by

Carmen Drake laughs easily, speaks enthusiastically, and paints beautifully. Her goal is to bring beauty and peace through her art into the lives of others. Her own life hasn’t always been one of peace and joy, however. She has dealt with heartbreak and loss, but she doesn’t dwell on the past—except, of course, when she’s painting an old pair of shoes or umbrella. Drake is curious about the past lives of things, which might sound a little odd since we normally don’t think of things as having lives. Not so with Drake. “I think about the people who might have
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Pushing Boundaries

Pushing Boundaries

February 7, 2025 | by

For Nebraska native Todd A. Williams, capturing beauty and rendering it in ways that excite viewers on multiple levels is his greatest love. His distinctive way of texturing paint and his paint quality and manipulation allow viewers to take in the entire design and the overall harmony of the visual layout whether they’re up close, studying details, or standing at a distance. “I love it when I can reveal the entire process of creation from the drawing and abstract underpainting to the finished areas of refinement,” Williams says. “The belief in the process of creation is just as important as
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A Sense of Intimacy

A Sense of Intimacy

February 7, 2025 | by

Since she started exhibiting her work 15 years ago, Naomi Shachar’s emotive oil paintings of Western scenes and personalities have been celebrated and honored in competitions and exhibitions across the country. But, when she was just starting out as an artist, she aimed to please only one critic: her mother, Esther Katz. Seeking her mother’s input wasn’t solely about familiarity or honesty, but more about the respect she had for her mother’s appreciation of good art—her eye for it, her sensibilities. “She had a keen eye for art and could discern quality workmanship of form and color,” says Shachar, who
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‘I Believe in Callings’

‘I Believe in Callings’

February 7, 2025 | by

Lying on her back, flat on the ground, watching the clouds’ antics for hours. Running barefoot through the woods, dog beside her, throwing her head back and embracing the sun with arms and laughter. Moving from full throttle to dead stop in an instant, captured by the beauty of a tree. Creeping up on a view as if trying not to scare it away, hoping to snapshot the perfect ray of light in the camera of her mind’s eye. These are some of the earliest memories of landscape artist Romona Youngquist. They are also some of her most recent memories
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A Long and Winding Road

A Long and Winding Road

February 7, 2025 | by

“I’ve probably had a different journey to art than most artists,” says oil painter Lauri Ketchum, in what is actually a monumental understatement. “As a kid, I liked art and had an artistic brother, but I played basketball. I had nothing to do with art, didn’t pursue it whatsoever.” Ketchum’s decidedly uncreative path continued during her college years. “In college I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something that leads to a good job,’ so I went into accounting, which I always hated but which offered good career options,” she says. Three years after earning a degree in accounting from Oklahoma
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