Archives for Pastel

Riding New Waves

Riding New Waves

April 10, 2024 | by

Daniel Keys is successful, inspired—and inspiring. He’s earned prestigious awards for his paintings, which are included in collections throughout the world, and is inspired by the beauty around him. He’s also generous, giving back through two programs he developed to encourage young artists: the Sierra Art Group and the Palette Project. He got the idea for both programs while painting with the late master artist Richard Schmid, who had formed the Putney Painters on the East Coast. “I wanted to replicate that, so I started the Sierra Art Group,” Keys says, adding that the group paints together at A Sense
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Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead

February 8, 2024 | by

During the past six months, J.R. Hess has been living his dream life. He moved to Colorado with his wife Molly and their two teenage sons, Cass and River, he’s got studio space in his new home in Loveland, and his photorealistic wildlife drawings hang in galleries in Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming. “I’ve been waiting my whole life to get to this point,” Hess says. “I am so thankful, so happy to be doing what I’m doing. I’m still new at this but I know that I’m so fortunate to be able to do what I love to do.”
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A Magnificent Obsession

A Magnificent Obsession

August 10, 2023 | by

When Heidi Marshall was a young girl, she said to her mother, “Show me something I haven’t seen before.” Her mother replied, “Oh, my—another artist!” In recalling that moment, Marshall says, “I come from a family of artists, and she recognized what we were like.” Marshall’s father, William Amenda, was chief editorial portrait and courtroom illustrator for “The Detroit News” and also painted and sculpted in his spare time. Her paternal grandfather was an artist in Germany who painted religious scenes in churches. And her mother was a writer and fine arts appraiser. Read the full article in the September/October
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A Compelling Medium

A Compelling Medium

June 15, 2023 | by

With its mix of pigments and powders, pastel preceded all other mediums. The proof is on the walls of caves painted with mineral oxide pigments. Pastel is the only medium for painter and mountaineer Nori Thorne, a longtime collaborator with nature and paint. From the gritty, finger-staining application to its flexibility and even its fragility, pastel is the mode of choice for Thorne, who finds herself celebrated in a genre often associated with large-format oils or bold acrylics. “We’re really the red-headed step-children of the art world,” she says. “But pastel has been around since we were humans. That’s what’s
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Wandering the Colorado Plateau

Wandering the Colorado Plateau

January 5, 2023 | by

Lorenzo Chavez is an admired landscape painter living in Parker, Colorado. A native of New Mexico, he fell in love with Colorado when he studied at the Colorado Institute of Art in 1983, graduating with honors. He started working as a commercial artist out of school, then turned to fine art in his mid-20’s and has been doing that ever since. This past April, Gallery East at the University of Utah Eastern in Price, Utah hosted an exhibition titled “Wandering the Colorado Plateau,” featuring 45 works from artist Lorenzo Chavez. Each piece was inspired by or painted on location in
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Flying Free

Flying Free

November 3, 2022 | by

I was given a guitar when I was 5; it was my first creative outlet. As I got older, I would take my guitar into the acres of woods and creeks in my backyard, where I was transported to a place free of the cares I thought I had as a 13-year-old. When I vanished into the woods, emerging hours later, I felt like I had gotten to fly free for a while. Today, a couple of hours are hard to come by, and when I have it, there is not enough time to reset…to fly free. Quiet places—I’m seduced
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Patterns of Light

Patterns of Light

November 3, 2022 | by

On a hot July day in Livingston, Montana, landscape artist Aaron Schuerr took a much needed break. Work during the past month and a half—well, really the past year—had found him scrambling to keep up with his projects. A major one was a painting for the grand opening of the Illume Gallery West in Phillipsburg, Montana. Schuerr did, however, make time to join other grand opening artists in painting at the ranch that gallery owners, Jane Lundgren and her husband Mark, own. Schuerr does what he loves and loves what he does. But there’s more to the man than creating
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‘This is My Life’

‘This is My Life’

January 1, 2022 | by

Sculptor Chris Hunt has dislocated each of his shoulders at least four times and broken both clavicles, both scapulae, and a couple of ribs. The Texas-born artist and former Air Force senior airman has always jumped feet first into new things, be it riding in rodeos or introducing a new medium to his repertoire. “‘No fear’ was my mantra, and still is to this day,” he says. Hunt grew up in Damon, Texas, on a ranch on the Brazos River, where he was raised by his father Maurice and had no problem amusing himself by drawing, fishing, hunting, and riding
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A Spiritual Connection

A Spiritual Connection

September 1, 2021 | by

It’s a Monday morning in late May, and Linda Mutti is feeling lucky. “I am gonna paint today,” she announces jubilantly. “And then I’m doing a mentoring class, and then I’m going to hang with my two little rescue dogs. They’re very yappy, but I adore them. They like to come hang out in the studio.” If Mutti’s day doesn’t sound sufficiently idyllic, consider this: The studio in question is on the second floor of her home in Santa Barbara, California, with a panoramic view of the Santa Ynez Mountains. If she feels like painting outside instead of in the
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Endless Inspiration

Endless Inspiration

March 1, 2021 | by

Denise LaRue Mahlke doesn’t have to go far to find inspiration for her paintings. She simply has to step outside and look up—or out. “I find great inspiration in the beauty of big, cloud-filled skies and wide-open places, but I am also drawn to quiet, intimate scenes that require a closer look,” she says. “Subtleties in nature excite me, particularly the exquisite light and atmosphere found early or late in the day.” Mahlke paints the beauty she sees in and around her home in Whitehouse, Texas, as well as other places in the West, using pastels as she does so.
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