Archives for Landscape

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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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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‘I Paint What Excites Me’

‘I Paint What Excites Me’

November 3, 2022 | by

Getting to the Prix de West International Art Exhibition last June wasn’t easy for Ron Kingswood. His home near Sparta, Ontario, is almost 1,150 miles from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—and travel between Canada and the United States had become more challenging since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. But it was worth the trip for Kingswood and his wife Linda. His painting, A Morning Walk, earned the Major General and Mrs. Don D. Pittman Wildlife Award for exceptional artistic merit for a wildlife painting or sculpture at the show. “I was
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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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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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Nature and the Human Soul

Nature and the Human Soul

September 1, 2022 | by

In some ways, personally and professionally, Sally Vannoy’s life might seem like a fairytale. She married the man of her dreams in a beautiful setting in Glacier National Park, was accepted into the Society of Animal Artists as a Signature Member on her first attempt, and has seen her works hang beside original Charles M. Russell paintings at the famous Triple Creek Ranch. As in many classic stories, however, the heroine had to leave her comfort zone in order to reach her potential. “I had the most amazing childhood and family life growing up,” says Vannoy, who grew up with
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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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Anything is Possible

Anything is Possible

June 30, 2022 | by

“It’s incredible how magical the desert is when you go with the intention of self-reflection,” says Colorado artist Anna Rose Bain, who began a tradition of taking solo trips to the California desert when she was struggling with severe adrenal fatigue just before the start of COVID. “I found that I was getting burnt out at least twice a year, to a point where it was affecting my health and my relationships,” says Bain, who balances painting with raising two young children and practicing CrossFit, a high-intensity fitness program. “I started going to the desert to recharge and meditate and
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