Archives for Figurative

Putting Scratchboard on the Map

Putting Scratchboard on the Map

December 13, 2024 | by

Like most people in their 20s, Colorado wildlife artist Nelson Tucker spent many of those years carving out his own identity. Today, carving is vital to his art. “I’m going to stick with scratchboard for a while,” he says. “I’ve always had a love for black and white and love the different values and shapes that you can get out of it.” Though he also does pen-and-ink drawings, as well as pencil-on-paper, Tucker’s passion is for scratchboard. Tucker discovered scratchboard art when he was 10 and fell in love with the process of carving into an inked, black surface to
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All is Well in Paradise

All is Well in Paradise

December 13, 2024 | by

Scott Rogers has heard “the voice” speak to him twice. Both times it changed his life. The first time came about after he had purchased a sculpture created by his uncle, Grant Speed. He had seen the sculpture, entitled Rough String, in 1982 and knew he had to have it but, being a college student, he couldn’t afford it. “In 1990, when I had a little money, I called uncle Grant and said I wanted to buy it,” Rogers says. It had sold out, but Speed, through an art gallery, was able to locate one that would soon become available
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Visions in Stone

Visions in Stone

October 9, 2024 | by

When he was in his twenties, Navajo (Diné) Alvin Marshall was traveling to Florence on a grant to study Michelangelo’s David when he had an especially vivid dream. In it, a man spoke to him first in Italian, then in Navajo. “He said, ‘You’re going to see a lot of great art, but don’t take anything from it, because it won’t help you,’” Marshall says. “He said, ‘All of that has already been done; you need to do your own thing.’” Later, at the Galleria Dell’Accademia di Firenze, Marshall recognized the man from his dream in a seated figure that
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The Romance of the West

The Romance of the West

October 9, 2024 | by

Dakota Pitts is on a self-guided journey that began 11 years ago, when he was 23 and took a life drawing class at City College in Long Beach, California. That journey has taken him around the world and has landed his paintings in some impressive art shows and galleries. Pitts’ love of the outdoors traces back to his childhood. Growing up in Long Beach, he spent most of his time drawing, surfing, and skateboarding. “I just wanted to be outside,” he says, adding that he still does. Following his high school graduation, Pitts moved up the coast to Santa Barbara,
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Living History

Living History

August 8, 2024 | by

“To be a frontiersman, I thought I needed a horse and a rifle,” artist Doug Hall says of his childhood in southwest Missouri, where he did his best to imitate his heroes, Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. That meant spending his days in a tipi in his parents’ backyard and, at age 15, skipping school to buy a flintlock rifle. “I’ve been shooting one ever since,” he says. That story is a fitting example of how Hall has lived his life, bucking convention in favor of the way things used to be. He has won black powder rifle matches, roamed
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‘It’s Been a Wondrous Career’

‘It’s Been a Wondrous Career’

August 8, 2024 | by

Jack Sorenson remembers the day his cowboy lifestyle collided with his dreams of being an artist. He was 9 years old and helping to break a horse on the family’s dude ranch and frontier town located on the rim of the Palo Duro Canyon—not far from Amarillo, Texas. He remembers being bucked off that horse—and he remembers what he was thinking as it happened. “Between the time I left the saddle and the time I hit the ground, I had the thought to protect my right arm,” Sorenson says. Now, as he turns 70, the toll of all the tumbles
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‘I Love Beauty’

‘I Love Beauty’

June 6, 2024 | by

Larry Riley pulled back a bit from painting a few years ago but he didn’t pull back from creating. During COVID, when galleries were closed, he turned away from his easel and began to make classical guitars. It wasn’t the first time during his 76 years on earth that he veered from the road he was on and let his curiosity lead him. He’s taken chances—and reaped rewards—by mapping his own route. In 1982, after spending nine years taking care of people’s teeth, Riley sold his dentistry practice and turned to fine art. Later, after spending about 40 years as
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Cowboy Storyteller

Cowboy Storyteller

April 10, 2024 | by

“I need a wife,” laments accomplished New Mexico oil painter JaNeil Anderson. She is mostly joking; she has been happily married to her husband Walt for many years, working side by side with him on their cattle ranch beside the Gila River. But, as she notes, it’s not uncommon for the wives of male artists to take on much of the ancillary work that surrounds making and selling art: marketing, framing, accounting, and other supportive and administrative tasks. “My men artist friends all have wives,” Anderson says. “The wife does all the show entries and all the paperwork; the men
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Kindred Spirits

Kindred Spirits

April 10, 2024 | by

Matthew Hillier and Julia Rogers have a special connection. They share a love of wildlife, landscapes, and water. They respect each other’s talent and cheer each other on. And, they’re married—to each other. The two met at an art show in Tacoma, Washington, in the 1990s and continued to connect at other shows for a few years before they began long distance dating. At the time, Hillier was living in Florida, and Rogers was living in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. They married in 2001 and lived in a suburb of Washington, D.C. for a time, but Rogers missed living in Chesapeake
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‘I Like Variety’

‘I Like Variety’

April 10, 2024 | by

Dana Lombardo has a 9 to 5 job, but it doesn’t take her far from her art projects. Both, in fact, are usually in the same room. Lombardo is a contract specialist for a hospital and lives in Grand Lake, at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in the northeast corner of Oklahoma. Since the pandemic, she’s been able to work from home, setting up her office in her art studio. “It’s great because I can sit across the room and stare at [one of my paintings], and say it needs this or it needs that,” Lombardo says. “I can
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