Archives for Oil

The Grand Canyon Master

The Grand Canyon Master

February 4, 2026 | by

  It was love at first sight. Curt Walters was 19 when he first laid eyes on the Grand Canyon. “It changed my life,” he says. “There was an intensity to it—the depth, the layers, amazing clouds, and the atmosphere. It was like seeing the whole world at one time. I felt real joy there, and I was determined to paint it.” Today, 57 years later, Walters is still painting it. The Grand Canyon captured his soul and never let go. Several years ago, this magazine referred to him as a master impressionist landscape painter and described him as “the
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Struggle, Hope and Beauty

Struggle, Hope and Beauty

February 4, 2026 | by

  California-based Chinese-American oil painter Huihan Liu loves the writings of Ernest Hemingway, particularly “The Old Man and the Sea,” so much that many years ago, he made an oil painting inspired by the book. “When I was in graduate school, we had a final project involving literature and painting,” he says. “And one of my paintings was The Old Man and the Sea.” There was something in the story that spoke to him, he says—the difficulty, the struggle, the endurance, the refusal to lose hope even in the face of crushing misfortune. Unlike most of his other paintngs, The
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The Studio of Krystii Melaine

The Studio of Krystii Melaine

February 4, 2026 | by

  When Krystii Melaine and her husband Michael moved from Australia to the United States 15 years ago, they settled in Spokane, Washington. They had a large, lovely house with a tree-filled backyard that sloped down to a river. They regularly saw moose, eagles, coyotes, porcupines, owls, and many other birds from their windows. “It was fabulous,” she says. Melaine loved that house, but Michael was concerned about keeping it up as they got older. So, he dangled the one thing he knew would convince his wife to move: her dream studio. In Spokane, Melaine’s studio was in the basement
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Reflecting the Magic of Light

Reflecting the Magic of Light

February 4, 2026 | by

  When Michelle Kondos was a senior at Bennington College in Vermont, her advisor told her something no aspiring artist ever wants to hear. “I had a bad experience toward the end of college with my main advisor there, who told me that I had zero talent and no hope of ever earning a living as an artist,” Kondos says. “When I left school, I was so discouraged by this that I didn’t paint for about four years.” Kondos’ academic career was full of ups and downs. The curriculum at Bennington College focused on abstract art, leaving her unsatisfied, because
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The Beauty of Botanicals

The Beauty of Botanicals

February 4, 2026 | by

  The first word that comes to mind when you see a painting by Dyana E. Hesson is “stunning.” Her botanical paintings with their vibrant colors and masterful use of light and shadow simply cannot be ignored. While other artists might paint similar subjects, few—if any—do so on the scale and with the talent of Hesson. Her largest painting to date is a whopping 61”-by-100” commission for one of her many collectors. “I had to build a special easel for it,” she says, “I built one I could rachet up and down. Large canvases grab people’s attention. I love to
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The West Goes Pop

The West Goes Pop

December 8, 2025 | by

  Billy Schenck can’t draw, as he will tell you himself. “I was never a good draftsman,” he says. “I just can’t make stuff up and draw it from memory. I mean, I can draw cactus, I can draw trees, I can draw sagebrush—but hands, faces, horses? I have to use photographs.” Schenck isn’t being self-deprecating; that’s not his style, as he will also tell you. “I knew by the time I was 24 that I was going to alter the course of Western art, and that’s exactly what I did. So how about that for humility?” How does a
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A New Life

A New Life

December 8, 2025 | by

  When Jerry Salinas turned 50, his wife gave him an unexpected gift. She knew that after more than 20 years as an illustrator for commercial clients, he was ready for a change. But she also knew that she needed to give him a gentle push in that direction. So, on his birthday, she told him to stop doing commercial work. That marked the official start of Salinas’ fine art career, a move he had been itching to make since he started illustrating back in the early 2000s. “I started my career in illustration, mainly to earn a living,” he
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Quiet Majesty

Quiet Majesty

December 8, 2025 | by

  Mark Boedges’ oil paintings are filled with a focused light, both subtle and brilliant, that captures the quiet majesty of the American West and the complexity of its varied landscape. His paintings weren’t always this way, however, and his path to clarity, both in his subject and in his life, was full of twists and turns. A St. Louis, Missouri, native, Boedges says that St. Louis wasn’t a hotbed of artistic activity, but its museums provided enough inspiration through works by Monet and other landscape painters to make an impression on him. “The Impressionists were the first big influence
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Unlocking Unorthodoxy

Unlocking Unorthodoxy

December 8, 2025 | by

  At age 79, Craig Tennant is conscientiously reinventing his career to shy away from tired formulas and to create art that makes him happy. The creative change hearkens back to his roots in advertising while it also gives him more permission to experiment and to paint what he wants. “I’m coming back to who I really am, and that’s a graphic artist,” he says. “I’m going to go into more design and a flatter look.” The directional change, Tennant says, is due in part to being burned out on creative ideas after feeling compelled to produce the same painting
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Basking in the Glow

Basking in the Glow

December 8, 2025 | by

  Jennifer Wendt’s first loves were animals. Growing up on a small farm in northeast Kansas, she was her father’s little helper. Together they’d ride tractors and combines as they tended to crops, and she’d follow him around as he checked and fed their cows. She spent her weekends with her siblings “baking” mud pies full of sticks, acorns, and fallen fruit, and riding around on her make-believe horse, also known as her bike. “I’d spend hours out in the woods tracking deer and bobcat and turkeys and anything that I could track or find, just exploring and spending time
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