Archives for Oil

It’s Never Too Late

It’s Never Too Late

February 8, 2024 | by

Arkansas oil painter Brenda Morgan’s artistic life currently is a tale of two buffalo—or maybe three. “It’s a long, sad story,” she says with a sigh. “The painting I’m working on is actually a replacement for the Woolaroc/Women Artists of the West Invitational Exhibition in May. I had two buffalo that were going to be in it but now I’m basically repainting one of them, painting the same painting. I varnished it, the same way I varnish all my paintings; I’ve used the same varnish for years. I don’t know what happened.” The varnish, Morgan says, got “a little weird.”
Read More

‘It’s A Fine Life’

‘It’s A Fine Life’

December 11, 2023 | by

“I’m 88 years old. I still love to paint, so I’m in the studio every day,” says Chuck Sabatino, whose paintings have been wowing art aficionados for almost four decades. “I also love to golf with friends and am not very good at it. They tell me, ‘Stay home and paint!’” While Sabatino loves golfing, he loves painting more. That’s why he’s in the studio at his home in north Scottsdale, Arizona, seven days a week. He arrives there at 9 a.m. each day and works until about 2 p.m., following that with reading and doing research for future paintings. 
Read More

On the Road

On the Road

December 11, 2023 | by

On some level, Linda Lillegraven has been drawn to the wide-open spaces of the Western landscape for most of her life. She remembers visiting national parks with her family when she was a child. When they’d stop at an overlook and get out of the car to take in the view, she’d see her dad’s face light up. “He’d say, ‘This is God’s country,’” Lillegraven says. “The enthusiasm he had, the love and reverence—he really loved the big open spaces, and I think I caught that from him.” The idea of painting those spaces didn’t occur to her, however, until
Read More

The Power of Paint and Prayer

The Power of Paint and Prayer

December 11, 2023 | by

Alfredo Rodriguez is a master painter who delights in capturing the faces of Native Americans, pioneers, cowboys, miners, and children and letting those faces tell stories. He is particularly drawn to the faces of old people, saying, “The wrinkles, the expressions, tell the story.” But he is also drawn to the innocence, the “cleanliness of the souls” of children. No matter who or what he is painting, he does so with unbridled talent. There is one face Rodriguez has painted that he will remember forever: an official at the American Counsel in Tijuana, Mexico. In 1970, while applying for a
Read More

The Road to Western Wildlife

The Road to Western Wildlife

December 11, 2023 | by

Carol Lundeen’s love affair with animals of the West began in the 1970s. During a family trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota, she was fascinated by the bison and herds of pronghorn she saw there. “Everywhere you’d look, you could see herds of pronghorn running over the land,” she says. “I was so impressed with their beauty.” It would take many years for art and the fascination with Western wildlife to combine and become a focus for Lundeen. But, here she is today—enthusiastically capturing in oils the animals that made such an impression on her when she was
Read More

Simplicity and Complexity

Simplicity and Complexity

December 11, 2023 | by

Rick Kennington grew up in environments much like those he paints: seemingly endless spaces, mountain backdrops, blue skies, and the steady resolve of cowboys and others whose lives are quietly, solidly entwined with the West. A lifelong resident of Utah, living near the Wasatch Mountains, Kennington’s parents were both from Star Valley, Wyoming, and he spent much of his childhood visiting his grandfather in that area. That’s when the painting began. From his first painting, when he was 18, of his grandfather on a horse, it’s been an ongoing pull toward portraying that life and lifestyle that has kept Kennington
Read More

The Studio of Gladys Roldan-de-Moras

The Studio of Gladys Roldan-de-Moras

December 11, 2023 | by

Magic can occur anywhere. Take, for instance, a busy street in San Antonio, Texas, with five lanes of traffic rushing past a bustling neighborhood of restaurants, doctors’ offices, and an upscale grocery store—where the businesses give way to residential blocks with a sleek, white, modern house that sits behind a cinderblock wall. Unlike the surrounding houses, this one doesn’t sit neatly parallel to the street; it’s at a noticeable slant, facing squarely north. To step through the gates and into the foyer is to step into another world. The rear wall, composed of 15 five-by-seven-foot windowpanes, stretches up, embracing the
Read More

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″
Read More

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
Read More

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
Read More