Archives for Figurative

Renaissance Man of the West

Renaissance Man of the West

January 5, 2023 | by

Western artist Charles Dayton clearly recalls the exact moment art went from part-time hobby to potential vocation. “[Utah landscape painter] Karl Thomas came over to my house,” he says, referring to an event that took place more than 20 years ago. “He’d found out that I was doing some painting—just starting, just some basic things. “I brought out a couple pieces to show him what I was working on—I think it was a mule deer and something else—and he just got kind of quiet. I thought, ‘He’s figuring out how to let me know I shouldn’t quit my day job.’
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Inspiring and Uplifting

Inspiring and Uplifting

January 5, 2023 | by

Echoing the wisdom in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” “To thine own self be true,” Arizona-based painter Mitch Baird emphasizes, “As an artist, I don’t want to be pigeonholed. I simply want to be open and free to paint whatever I see—landscapes, figurative works, still life or whatever else motivates me.” He says, “Paintings are a communication between artist and viewer, and great artistic communication depends on solid draftsmanship, design, and vision. What I strive for in each painting is to create a positive visual statement, and hope that the viewer will experience what I see and be inspired, uplifted, and moved in
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A Dream Realized

A Dream Realized

January 5, 2023 | by

Dial back 60 years; it’s 1962, and 6-year old Patricia McGeeney is settling into a small studio at the back of Mittel’s Art Supply Store in Santa Monica, California. She is about to take the first steps toward her dream of becoming an artist. Already a prolific drawer of horses, McGeeney has impressed her mother with her artistic skills, so much so that she has signed her daughter up for art lessons in the store’s studio. “The high ceilings, dingy atmosphere, and smell of turpentine had a profound effect on me,” McGeeney says. “I never wanted to do anything else
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Pushing the Color

Pushing the Color

November 3, 2022 | by

“I do a couple of shows a year,” says New Mexico-based oil painter Mejo Okon. “The rest of the time, I’m just trying to do cool stuff.” That statement is not a hollow boast. Okon has just wrapped up a courtroom sketching gig for a high-profile trial in Colorado and is now back home in Albuquerque painting. She recently dabbled in acting as well, playing a courtroom sketch artist in the upcoming “Coyote vs. Acme,” an animated/live action movie. “Today I’m working on colorizing some of my seventy-plus drawings from the trial,” Okon says, going on to offer some background
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Capturing the Cowboy Culture

Capturing the Cowboy Culture

November 3, 2022 | by

It’s not often you find common qualities with oil painting and bull riding—but you do when you meet Western painter Brandon Bailey. “It’s a lot of self-doubt and fear,” he says of bull riding. “There’s no one there to make you get on that bull. With art, it’s the same type of thing, whether you’re sitting at the canvas or walking into a gallery; it’s the same type of feelings and the same type of emotions you come across.” In the decade-plus since he left rodeo riding, Bailey has made a full-time living working as an artist, with things progressing
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The Studio of Joe Bohler

The Studio of Joe Bohler

November 3, 2022 | by

Having been raised on a 1,200-acre working ranch in northwestern Montana, it was not surprising that, as an adult, watercolorist Joseph Bohler would eventually make his home in a place with similar beauty and open spaces. Now living in Monument, Colorado, he and his wife Alaina try to visit his home state every year. “Every other year, I also head to South Dakota to do a little research,” he says. “There is a working ranch there that has a yearly event known as Artists’ Ride. They bring in all kinds of models–mountain men and Indians from various tribes. They can
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Beauty Abounds

Beauty Abounds

September 1, 2022 | by

Three years ago, artist Howard Friedland and his wife Susan Blackwood—also an artist—moved from Bozeman, Montana to Bella Vista, Arkansas. The couple had lived in Bozeman since getting married in 1998 and loved everything about it—especially the spacious studio they shared in their home there. But they had grown weary of the heavy snowfalls that often extended into April and May and of the smoke from Western forest fires that made plein air painting a challenge during the summer months. When they visited Jeff Legg, an artist friend, at his home in the Ozarks, they realized that relocating to Arkansas
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The Studio of John Fawcett

The Studio of John Fawcett

September 1, 2022 | by

In late May, after a four-day drive from their home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, John and Elizabeth Fawcett happily drove through the gates to their home in Clark, Colorado. It’s an annual event that includes pulling a large horse trailer occupied by the couple’s two horses and all of Fawcett’s paint supplies. “We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies,” he says with a laugh. Located on a 52-acre ranch the Fawcetts named Double LL—which Fawcett says stands for Lucky (me) and Lizzie (Elizabeth)—the property is 25 miles north of Steamboat Springs. Willow Creek runs through the ranch and attracts deer and elk,
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An Artist on a Mission

An Artist on a Mission

September 1, 2022 | by

As a young child, Joe Kronenberg drew voraciously. Today, as an adult, he is an artist on a mission. “As an artist in the 21st century, I strive to create paintings that embody the aesthetic and objective standards of the 19th century European academic art world,” he says. It’s a style he believes has been lost in an instant-gratification world. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Kronenberg filled his room—as well as the rest of the house—with realistic artwork of the area’s grandeur. In his mind, it was just a matter of time before he would become an artist. That
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Painting From His Soul

Painting From His Soul

June 30, 2022 | by

William Suys doesn’t limit himself in what he paints or how he paints it, whether it’s an animal, a person, a landscape, or a still life. The only constant is that he strives to imbue each of his works with personality, presence, and power. He accomplishes each of those goals with great skill. “I want the process of my painting to be personal, completely from my soul,” Suys says. “I want to paint what I feel, and I’ve been doing more of that. If I can paint something that is meaningful for me and do a better job of laying
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