Archives for Figurative

Sweet Success

August 6, 2026 | by Lazelle Jones

Albin Veselka has paid his dues, just as most successful artists have, and is now reaping the rewards of overcoming the struggles of developing a career in the world of fine art. He participates in several invitational events, including the Cowboy Artists of America’s Show, the Coors Show, the Buffalo Bill Auction, the Out West Art Show, the Coeur d’Alene Auction, and a few shows each year at Settlers West Gallery in Tucson, Arizona. Veselka lives with his wife Jenee and their four children in the southeast corner of Idaho. He grew up on a small ranch in Western Idaho,
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Excellence and Beauty

August 6, 2026 | by Joe Tougas

Named after the French word for studio, atelier schools are where students immerse themselves in an intensive series of training in realism. For months on end, they draw and paint repeatedly, often the same subject—usually still lifes or human models—with a focus on detail. Along with most of the world, Jonathan Noon had some time on his hands during the pandemic, so he decided to seriously explore his interest in drawing and painting. Up to that point in his life, he had set art aside for other pursuits. But, in 2021, he and his wife Katie moved from Scottsdale, Arizona,
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The Drama of Black and White

August 6, 2026 | by Vicki Stavig

When Stephanie Campos was in kindergarten, her teacher gave the class a drawing assignment. She finished her drawing and gave it to the teacher, who then asked her to draw it again. “I think she wanted to know that it wasn’t ‘accidentally’ good,” she says. “Then she called my parents and said, ‘Your daughter is an artist.’” She is indeed. Today Campos is known for her realistic charcoal portraits of Native Americans. Her work has caught the attention of collectors—and other artists. In fact, when asked about the highlight of her career, she quickly responds with two words: Howard
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Celebrating Richard Schmid

August 6, 2026 | by Vicki Stavig

How do you honor the life and work of someone as talented and generous as Richard Schmid? How do you celebrate a master artist who championed the beauty and integrity of representational work through his magnificent paintings? How do you acknowledge an artist who generously shared his knowledge by mentoring countless artists in various stages of their journeys? How do you celebrate and recognize the joy he found in creating art? The answer is this: You gather with others who loved, appreciated, and learned from him. That will be the case in October, when the Palette & Chisel Academy
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The Nostalgic West

June 9, 2026 | by Mark Wilcox

A trip to the principal’s office in first grade might have been the catalyst that pushed Dennis Ziemienski toward art. When he drew a full wine glass next to a bottle, his principal called his parents in for two reasons: One, he worried Ziemienski might be “imbibing” at home, given the adult subject matter. Two, the principal, who was also an artist, noticed that the child had correctly drawn the top of his wine glass as an ellipse. The kid could already render complex visual perspectives instead of simple outlines. “Let this kid go into art, because he has
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Wildlife With a Twist

June 9, 2026 | by Joe Tougas

About 10 years ago, after painting portraits for more than 20 years, Georgia-based artist Lisa Gleim needed a change. She found what she wanted when she and her oncologist husband Bill Jonas bought a vacation home in Big Sky, Montana. While there, she spent days photographing bears at the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, a sanctuary for bears and wolves that for various reasons wouldn’t survive in the wild, and taking in the mountain scenery. That visit made a profound impression on her and kickstarted a change in her subject matter. “I was gobsmacked, being right there, not far
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Fresh Mind, Fresh Eyes

June 9, 2026 | by Clover Cameron

You might not recognize Simon Lok’s name, but you have almost certainly seen his work. If you watched any of Disney’s animated feature films in the late 1990s and early 2000s—“Mulan,” “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” “Brother Bear,” or “The Princess and the Frog” to name just a few—you’re familiar with his use of color, light, and landscape to create a vivid and memorable palette and setting for those films’ characters and their adventures. Lok, who is listed in those films’ credits as Sai Ping Lok, was freshly graduated from art school at California State Long Beach when Disney hired
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Paying Tribute to the Statue of Liberty

June 9, 2026 | by Vicki Stavig

Some works of art are immediately identifiable throughout the world. A few that come to mind are Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, Michelangelo’s David, Alexandros of Antioch’s Venus de Milo, and Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker. Another one we can add to that list is the Statue of Liberty, a magnificent work of art that is known throughout the world as a symbol of freedom and democracy. Designed by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the Statue of Liberty took 10 years to create—from 1876 to 1886. It was assembled in Paris, then disassembled into 350 pieces, packed into 214
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Riding High

April 8, 2026 | by Mary Nelson

If you’ve ever imagined living on a ranch, riding high in the saddle, herding cattle, and working in nature, you can live that vicariously through the art of Sherry Cobb-Kelleher. “I don’t know if I’m being romantic or what, but I’ve always had such a connection to the land and the animals,” she says. “I want to be able to show that in my artwork so people can see and feel it. I’ve had this connection my whole life. That’s why I paint—to make that connection.” Born into a family of artists, Cobb-Kelleher describes her trajectory to becoming an
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Struggle, Hope and Beauty

February 4, 2026 | by Clover Cameron

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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Archives for Figurative

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