Archives for Wildlife

Dogs, Landscapes, and More

Dogs, Landscapes, and More

April 7, 2025 | by

Every now and then, James Swanson, who lives in LaGrange Park, Illinois, likes to spend time at a lake near his cottage in Michigan. He takes his two dogs—Bjorn, an English cream golden retriever, and Fenrir, a golden retriever—with him and throws tennis balls for them to chase. For them, it’s purely fun. For Swanson, however, it’s all work. Every time he throws the ball, he aims it in a different direction or to a different depth. He throws it from the dock. Sometimes, he gets into the water himself. He does whatever it takes to to get a new
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Electric Americana

Electric Americana

April 7, 2025 | by

Colt Idol is hard at work in the studio at his home in Whitefish, Montana. That’s not surprising, but what is surprising is that he’s surrounded by 21 paintings on the floor and hanging on the walls in a U-shape around him. “Right now, I have 21 pieces in the works,” he says. “Some artists work in a more linear fashion, but I like to spend about three hours on a piece and then go on to another. I work on four or five pieces each day; it helps me get a stronger end piece by spending time with it.
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A Sense of Intimacy

A Sense of Intimacy

February 7, 2025 | by

Since she started exhibiting her work 15 years ago, Naomi Shachar’s emotive oil paintings of Western scenes and personalities have been celebrated and honored in competitions and exhibitions across the country. But, when she was just starting out as an artist, she aimed to please only one critic: her mother, Esther Katz. Seeking her mother’s input wasn’t solely about familiarity or honesty, but more about the respect she had for her mother’s appreciation of good art—her eye for it, her sensibilities. “She had a keen eye for art and could discern quality workmanship of form and color,” says Shachar, who
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The Studio of Teresa Elliott

The Studio of Teresa Elliott

December 13, 2024 | by

A perky, curious French Charolais, swirling the reflective water it’s churning through, gazes over Teresa Elliott’s shoulder. She’s not outside, but the half-finished, 23” by 30” painting of the cow that sits on her easel feels at home in the dry, open landscape outside her studio window. Elliott’s studio overlooks the Que Dice Ranch with 10,000 open acres of hills, buttes, and desert plants. Cattle often wander through the vista, so it’s not surprising that Elliott has made them her subject matter ever since she pivoted away from graphic design, copywriting, and illustration and into a full-time career as a
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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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A Walk on the Wild Side

A Walk on the Wild Side

October 9, 2024 | by

The influence of one artist on another can be gradual, something that develops and reveals itself over years. In the case of Kathryn Ashcroft, it happened much more abruptly. That came about in 2015, when David Koch, a painter living in Utah, asked her to help him with a mural project that was going to be displayed at a church building in Montreal, Canada. During the 10 years before she got that request, Ashcroft was creating realistic oil paintings of wildlife that were exercises in precision, with every hair and feather in place. Koch wanted her to paint some animals
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Born to Be an Artist

Born to Be an Artist

August 8, 2024 | by

“I like to live as much of what I’m going to paint as possible, so I do a wagon train every year,” says Sandpoint, Idaho-based oil painter Julie Jeppsen. She doesn’t mean that she paints a wagon train every year; she means that she organizes and directs an entire real live wagon train—and then she paints it. “We live out in the wagon, with a team of horses pulling it,” she says. “My kids are all involved in it, and so are my grandkids. It’s an experience I can have with them. Last year, on our wagon trip, we had
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A Testimony to Her Art and Her Story

A Testimony to Her Art and Her Story

June 6, 2024 | by

Kathryn Merrill has a lot going on right now, in both her life and her art. The accomplished Oklahoma artist, who brings ranch scenes to vivid life with colored pencils and oil paints, is in a particularly vivid period of her own existence. During the past year, she married Sid, who works in the oil and gas industry, and became a stepmother to his two children. “I’ve had a huge life change,” she says. “We have four children between us. We probably moved pretty fast [on marriage] because we just felt like we had to have things in place to
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Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes

June 6, 2024 | by

Wyoming sculptor and painter, J. C. Dye, says an artist needs two lifetimes: one to master the art of sculpting and painting and another to reap some rewards. As a 76-year-old who has enough experience to fill at least two lifetimes, one reward is being recognized as one of the top sculptors in the United States. He’s earning kudos for his paintings as well, something he turned to when foundries began closing, and he found himself waiting up to a year to have a sculpture cast. Dye’s years as a rancher provided with him with intimate knowledge of the cowboy
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A Noble Pursuit

A Noble Pursuit

June 6, 2024 | by

Amy Lay admits that it took her a few years to recognize the value of the art degree she earned from Eastern Oregon University in 1994. At the time, most of the faculty members were interested only in abstract art and didn’t appreciate her passion for wildlife and nature. Since those were the only subjects that interested her, Lay often felt that her instructors snubbed her. But there was one professor who encouraged her to take the time to explore and to develop her own style. Thirty years later, the style that emerged from that exploration has become the hallmark
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