Archives for Oil

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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Looking to the Skies

Looking to the Skies

June 15, 2023 | by

Canadian artist Ross Buckland developed his love of the land while growing up on a farm in Ontario. “I was always looking at the sky or at the colors on the ground,” he says. He’s still looking at the sky and the ground but now he’s sharing what he sees through his paintings of landscapes, wildlife—and airplanes. “Aviation became a passion for me, and so did drawing,” Buckland says. “For summer vacations we would go to visit our grandparents in Calgary. The airplane flight was the most exciting part of it. I wanted the window seat so I could see
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The Adventure Continues

The Adventure Continues

June 15, 2023 | by

Last fall, Lee Alban took a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Although he and his family had traveled through the Tetons back in the 1970s and had explored some of the National Parks out West in the early 1990s, he hadn’t yet been to Jackson Hole. The purpose of the trip was to participate in the National Oil and Acrylics Painters Society’s Best of America exhibition. It was Alban’s first trip to Jackson Hole, and he was eager to see the city and gather photographic reference materials he could use in future works. But it wasn’t just the quintessential beauty
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The Studio of Roseta Santiago

The Studio of Roseta Santiago

May 4, 2023 | by

New Mexico artist Roseta Santiago is a storyteller. She has a seemingly infinite intellectual storehouse of anecdotes and people swirling around in her head that spill out in even the most mundane conversation. The same way that Santiago cultivates emotional connections with people and objects and infuses them into her art, she has also done so in her studio. In January, Santiago was hard at work preparing for a retrospective at the Woolaroc Museum & Wildlife Preserve in Osage County, Oklahoma. One of only 11 artists who will be featured at the show in October, she is thrilled to be
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