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.
Carol Lundeen • Minnesota • waow
Carol Lundeen is an oil painter specializing in animals, both wild and domestic. Her style is representational. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art from Northwest Nazarene College, Nampa, Idaho. She continued her studies with Robert Hagberg, Jay Moore, along with a host of other master artists.
Becky Lucht • Oklahoma • waow
Becky Lucht is a scratchboard artist. Her body of work reflects her ongoing love of animals, from horses and pets to wildlife, with a few fantasy creatures thrown in. They are generally rendered in the stark black and white of scratchboard, although she has been drawn to color versions of late.
Sarah Kennedy • Arizona • waow
Sarah Kennedy expresses her love of the natural world, the beauty of the desert, contemporary and traditional ranch life, rodeo, horses and figurative portraiture through her oil paintings. A sparkle in the eye, the softness of a draped mane or curved neck, the light that creates drama or luminosity, color that brings excitement or serenity are elements that infuse her work to capture life and feeling.
Reenie Kennedy • California • waow
Reenie Kennedy is an award-winning acrylic artist. Her work reflects her love for wildlife with an emphasis on bird art. She enjoys combining wildlife with her exquisite floral and ocean inspired backdrops, along with a touch of humor. She believes a sense of humor in painting is one of the best ways to lift the spirits.
Burneta Venosdel • Oklahoma • waow
Burneta Venosdel is a national, award-winning bronze sculptor and pastel painter. Many of her sculpture subjects are inspired by her surroundings and life on her Oklahoma ranch. She paints the landscapes of western Oklahoma and the wildflowers from the mountains west of Gunnison that she has trod for over 20 years.
Cecy Turner • Texas & Colorado • waow
Cecy Turner is an award-winning artist who works in both watercolor and oil. She prefers to paint en plein air, and does so almost daily since she began spending half of every year in Colorado. The effects of light and atmosphere are her favorite things to capture in paint.
Turner graduated from Vanderbilt University and did post-graduate study in art at University of North Texas. She has additionally studied under numerous accomplished artists in both oil and watercolor
Jennifer Hunter • Illinois • waow
Nationally recognized, award–winning artist, Jennifer Hunter, is known for her sensitive storytelling of American history through her art work. Her paintings exude unique quality of light and rich luminous color in both watercolor and oil. Hunter finds that her working knowledge of the use of transparency in watercolor enhances her oil painting techniques; and working in oil allows for experimentation with textured surfaces using both transparency and opacity of paint to give life to her work.
Elizabeth Lewis Scott • Alabama • waow
Elizabeth Lewis Scott believes that there are no shortcuts when creating art and she delights in the details. Her drawings and paintings of horses, cattle, donkeys, wildlife and western life are filled with the little details that give life and authenticity to her work.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Arts from Principia College, Elsah, Illinois. She then further honed her craft painting en plein air across Europe. She worked almost entirely on equine subjects early in her career, adding wildlife and western subjects in the mid-1990s.
Barbara Ellis • Vermont • waow
Barbara Ellis is a classically-trained academic realist painter. Her artwork celebrates the beauty of the natural world in all its variety — from delicate mare and foal scenes, to wildlife and rural animal scenes, to classical portraits and still lives. Ellis seeks to capture the beauty, dignity, and personalities of her subjects in her oil and acrylic paintings. Horses are an especially loved subject. She has spent years working to perfect her craft to achieve anatomical accuracy while expressing equine fire and elegance.
Shuli Wang • Illinois • waow
Shuli Wang is an accomplished artist residing in the vibrant Chicago metropolitan area. She was born in Inner Mongolia, China. She exhibited exceptional talent and an unwavering passion for the world of drawing and painting from an early age. Wang possesses a remarkable versatility, working fluently with an array of artistic mediums including pencil, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, and oil. Her artistic style can be aptly described as impressionistic realism, where vibrant brushwork often reminiscent of traditional Chinese freehand paintings infuses life into her creations. The subjects of her work are as diverse as her mediums, spanning landscapes, still life, and portraiture.
Mary Leslie • Colorado • waow
Mary Leslie’s paintings are the embodiment of her passion for ranching, wild spaces, and the grand vistas of the Sawatch and Sangre de Cristo mountain ranges where she lives and works. Her oil paintings combine the expansive feel of murals with the vibrant, lively colors she gravitates to. Her tendency to anthropomorphize animals grew out of her desire to share her artistic conversation between painting and subject. Leslie’s horses, donkeys, and dogs on the ranch frequently make cameo appearances along with the surrounding wildlife and flora of the desert, all of which reflect her deep-rooted affection for the inhabitants and untamed beauty of the West.
Nancy Walters • California • waow
Nancy Walters is an oil painter specializing in wildlife. She travels the world observing animals in the wild, as well as national refuges and parks in search of inspiration for her realistic paintings. This inspiration includes drawing from life and using photos she has taken during her many excursions. Once equipped with inspiration and images, Walters retreats to her studio at the Alameda Art Works in San Jose, California, where she can immerse herself in her painting process.
Corey Garman • Arizona • waow
Corey Garman paints the sweeping landscapes of the southwest in oils. She views landscape painting as a doorway that is open to let the viewer see inside and encourages one to feel that place, smell it and maybe even hear it. She creates her works primarily in the studio with an occasional venture into plein air.
Kathy Gale • Idaho • waow
Kathy Gale creates contemporary art that is a fusion of impressionism and abstraction. She tells the stories of farmers, migrant workers, and ranch hands at work set against the sweeping vistas of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana. She uses a variety of media to achieve her characteristic broken color that lends richness and texture to her painting surfaces, including oils, acrylics, gouache, watercolor and pastels.
Molly Moore • Wyoming • waow
Molly Moore draws and paints the stunning beauty and wildlife of the West. She especially seeks to portray the souls of wild animals from real life experience. Molly divides her time between creating in her studio and exploring outdoors to observe wildlife, often painting en plein air to capture the beautiful habitat they live in.
Jennifer Wendt • Kansas • waow
Jennifer Wendt paints what she knows best—the animals and nature she enjoys every day operating her own small ranch. Cattle, horses, dogs, barn cats and wildlife are favorite subjects for this self–taught artist. She works from her home studio. She can otherwise be found outdoors riding one of her horses, tending cattle, checking fences, choring, or doing any of the other myriad tasks around the ranch. Wendt’s observant mind drinks in the surrounding inspiration and translates that into paintings that are exhibited in many of the top shows and exhibitions in the United States. She has garnered many awards, including several "Best of Shows", "Artist's Choices", and "People's Choices" along the way.
Sandra Haynes • Oregon • waow
It's hard to tell where Sandra Haynes is the happiest — in the studio or out in the wild — but in both places she feels very much at home. The child who loved to draw, immersed in the world of wildlife and the woods, grew into a mountain woman; one who shares, through her art and through her wisdom, the beauty of the world she knows. Haynes tells her stories of animals and the western lifestyle through her scratchboard etchings tinted with watercolors, oil paintings and drawings.
Barby Schacher • Washington • waow
Barby Schacher is a Western Fine Artist whose work is deeply rooted in the traditions of ranch life, horses, and the rugged spirit of the American West. She was raised in a world where horseback riding, rodeos, and cattle drives shaped her experiences. She channels these influences into her original, detailed, pastel paintings of Western life that are both authentic and heartfelt. These artworks tell the timeless stories of everyday ranch life, celebrating both its beauty and grit.
Christy Stallop • Texas • waow
Christy Stallop is a Texas-based artist working primarily in oil paint. Her work is rooted in storytelling, memory, and a strong sense of place. Through bold compositions and symbolic imagery, she explores themes of identity, nostalgia, and cultural heritage. Stallop often focuses on animals, everyday objects, and still life arrangements that feel both personal and universal—quiet moments that carry emotional weight, humor, or social commentary.
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.