WAOW Artistry of the West

The WAOW Artistry is slowly being built to provide a page on our site to promote each artist. This project began late summer 2024. We have over 300 members to load here on their pages. You can search by name, location or by subject matter to find an artist.

Diane Fechenbach • Colorado • waow

Diane Fechenbach’s artistic passion is dramatic light and shadow; and clean, saturated color.  She is particularly interested in the effect of light on snow, trees, rocks and water.  She works in a variety of media, including pastel, oil, and watercolor. Her subjects are varied, but she particularly enjoys painting en plein air.

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Judy Fairley • Washington • waow

Judy Fairley is pastel and scratchboard artist, living and working in Washington.  She grew up in Clarkston, where she and her twin sister helped on the family's horse and cattle ranch. Her experiences while growing up provided her with endless inspiration that she has shared in her numerous artworks shown and exhibited throughout the United States and Canada.

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Susan Temple Neumann • Texas • waow

Susan Temple Neumann is an oil painter who enjoys a more painterly style of realism, which helps keep the artwork fresh and "alive." Her art is born from a desire to capture the emotion or mood of a particular scene.  A life-long fascination with native Americans, cowboys, horses, wildlife and the western landscape has fueled Neumann's art over the years and been the inspiration for her western pieces.

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Sue Wipf • Minnesota • waow

Sue Wipf worked on her parents' farm and spent time pondering the skies and the beauty around her. That experience continues to influence her values and her perspective on the world around her.  Her love for nature is expressed in her plein air paintings and studio work.  The artworks of Vermeer, Sargent, Turner, and Sorolla have influenced her.  She has studied at the Schroeder Studio and taken workshops from other master artists.

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Jane Coulombe • California • waow

Jane Coulombe is an oil painter specializing in landscape and seascape scenes.  She has spent most of her life in Southern California.  Her love for this golden land is reflected in her paintings of its land and sea.    One can feel the peace of early California and the beauty of the open land that remains, which she feels is our responsibility to preserve for future generations to enjoy.

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Jeanne Cardana • Oregon • waow

Jeanne Cardana’s biological, wildlife, and medical illustration artworks have been featured in textbooks, and scientific and domestic publications, including National Wildlife, Mother Earth News, and Fins and Feathers.  Her career has spanned fifty years—and counting!  Her mediums of choice are colored pencil and graphite pencil on Claire Fontaine Pastelmatte paper, Bristol Vellum paper, and archival illustration boards.  She has produced award winning original works and continues to take private commissions.

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Laura Pollak • North Carolina • waow

Laura Pollak is an award–winning, fulltime, professional fine artist.  She works primarily in oil and pastel.  Her art practice explores landscapes of the earth and constellations, as a continual search for her place in the universe.  Her artworks run the gamut from realism to explorations of the abstract.

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Mary Lou Pape • Kansas • waow

Mary Lou Pape’s passion for nature has made wildlife and the western way of life the primary focus of her artistic practice.  Her primary mediums are oil, pastel and pencil.  Travels to national parks, nature preserves, rodeos and ranches in America continually provide her with inspiration for her paintings of life in our remarkable country.  

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Nancy Harkins • Oklahoma • waow

Nancy Harkins is a watercolorist and graphite artist from Oklahoma.  Her style is realist and her subjects are wide ranging.  Her award–winning works have been featured in the watercolor anthology, Splash 19:  The Illusion of Light, and featured in two books, Seasons of Life and Seasons of Love. Her paintings are avidly sought for private and corporate collections.

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Lisa Rico • California • waow

Lisa Rico loves the immediacy of pastels and richness of the color possibilities achievable with them.   The face is her favorite subject — specifically, the faces of people from other cultures and countries encountered on her travels.  Rico also enjoys featuring local flora and fauna in colorful paintings as well as doing sanguine sketches and quick studies.

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Kristen Federchuk • Canada • waow

Kristin Federchuk a self-taught artist.   She practiced drawing by studying the works of artists she admired. She feels that her art career is what she was created to do.   She experiences great joy and excitement as she brings each painting to its ultimate fruition.  Federchuk’s subjects are varied, preferring to be free to explore and paint the beauty around her.

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Oil Paintings, Animals, Wildlife, Western WAOW . Oil Paintings, Animals, Wildlife, Western WAOW .

Leslie Kirchner • California • waow

Leslie Kirchner is an award–winning artist who lives and works in the rural mountains of California.  The landscape, animals, and atmosphere of the west have always been inspiring to her. She feels it important to connect with and portray each animal's uniqueness and individual personality, and convey that to the viewer through her paintings.  She strives to capture a sense of the life and movement of her subjects through the exploration of color, composition, and sensitive brushwork.

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Janice Wright • Colorado • waow

Janice Wright is originally from Western Canada, but now calls Arvada, Colorado her home.   She is a Visual Communications graduate from the Alberta College of Art of Canada.  Wright worked as a graphic designer for over fifteen years.   A one year residence in Europe provided her the opportunity to see paintings that previously she had only see in art history books. Profoundly moved by the experience, she stopped producing commercial art and began her fine art career.

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Sharon Grubbs • North Carolina • waow

 Sharon Grubbs finds inspiration in people and places throughout North Carolina’s Piedmont region. Her paintings range from traditional rural landscapes and images of local farmers, representing the area’s strong agricultural roots, to works featuring members of the many ethnic groups who have introduced new cultures to the area, even as they become an integral part of it. 

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Gloria Chadwick • California • waow

Gloria Chadwick finds joy in the wildlife sketching possibilities at the world–famous zoos, aquariums and wonderful coastline of the San Diego, California area, of which she is a native.  She is a master painter working in oils, acrylics, and watercolors. 

Chadwick is a dedicated enthusiast of wildlife conservation and delights to create art that brings attention to the animals—especially endangered species.  Her works have been accepted in many juried shows and festivals and have won numerous awards. 

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Barbara Gerard–Mitchell • Montana • waow

Barbara Gerard-Mitchell is an artist who works primarily in oils, acrylics, and watercolors.  Her subjects include landscape, wildlife, equine, and the western life-style. She is a graduate from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she received an Associate of Fine Arts Degree.  She has continued her studies with many renowned master painters. 

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Joye DeGoede • Arizona • waow

Joye DeGoede’s works juxtapose reality with fantasy, inspiring the viewer to see the fun in the mundane and the vast opportunities for joy in our everyday world.  She loves painting the surrealistic mixture of animals imitating human habits and in their natural habitat.  Wildlife conservation art is near and dear to her heart.  DeGoede’s art has taken an unanticipated fun turn.  She is very serious with her subject matter and message. Life is too short not to laugh, smile and enjoy life.  She didn't want people to perceive the JoyEful Party Animals ® as drunken animals. They are joyful creatures on this grand adventure of life.

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Helen F. Howerton • Oklahoma • waow

Helen F. Howerton,  a native Tulsan, knew from the age of 8 that art was her life’s career.   Drawing birds and animals was a passion that grew into painting, which now also includes sculpture.  Taking inspiration from her study of animal anatomy and sketches of nature, Helen shares her individual interpretation of the spirit in each animal.

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