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.

Cathy Sue Munson • Texas • waow

Cathy Sue Munson paints intricately detailed watercolor and gouache paintings, specializing in wildlife, longhorn cattle, western subjects and commissioned dog portraiture. 

She graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree, with honors, in Studio Art. She was featured in an article on outstanding canine artists in the April 2008 issue of Southwest Art Magazine.   The artist is widely recognized for her commissioned artwork for the University of Texas Athletics and Texas Exes alumni of their longhorn mascots, Bevo IX through current Bevo XV.  The paintings are on display in the Silver Spurs Museum at the football stadium.

Read More

Carolyn Mock • Oklahoma • waow

Carolyn Mock is a realist artist, who has painted wildlife and western themes for many years.  She has always worked in oil because she enjoys its creamy feel and the slow drying time that allows her the opportunity to work and blend the colors as the painting evolves. Her choice of wildlife grew out of a firm belief that nature, as well as everything in it, has the right to exist.  She works to show the dignity of each individual animal and the awe of them she experiences as she paints.

Read More

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.

Read More

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.   

Read More

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.  

Read More

Leslie Lambert • Idaho & Washington • waow

Leslie Lambert (also known as Leslie Redhead) is a celebrated artist known for her innovative poured watercolors. With a keen eye for detail and a mastery of color, Lambert skillfully pours and manipulates pigments on paper, resulting in stunning and dynamic compositions of the West. Her artwork, characterized by vibrant hues, has garnered widespread acclaim and has been exhibited in prestigious galleries and exhibitions worldwide. Lambert’s ability to push the boundaries of traditional watercolor painting has established her as a trail blazer in the arts.

Read More

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.

Read More

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. 

Read More

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.

Read More

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.

Read More
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.

Read More

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. 

Read More

Rose Collins • Arizona • waow

Rose Collins was enthralled with art, painting, and the western culture from her early childhood.  She relocated to Tucson, Arizona when she retired from her practice as a psychologist in New York.  She picked up a paintbrush and took a leap of faith into the unknown. That began a soul-searching decade of self-discovery, mentorship and successes in the very competitive art world, and paved the way to gallery representation. She loves being an established local Tucson Wildlife and Contemporary Southwest Artist.. 

Read More

Shelly J. Cox • Florida • waow

Shelly J. Cox is a contemporary realist oil painter who lives and works in the horse community of Jupiter Farms, Florida, USA.  She is a graduate of the Art Institute, Fort Lauderdale, Florida with a degree in commercial illustration, but she is a self-taught oil painter.  Cox diligently works regularly with master artist mentors to advance her painting skills. 

Read More

Amanda Cowan • Wyoming • waow

 Western and wildlife artist, Amanda Cowan, spends her time outdoors drawing the horses, cows and any wildlife that she comes into contact with.  She is self taught, painting in watercolors and oils.  Her art is in private collections in Korea, Australia, Canada, France and the United States.  

Read More

Denise Horne-Kaplan • North Carolina & Florida • waow

Denise Horne-Kaplan started her professional career in 1983.  She has participated in exhibits and juried shows — over 74 national and International juried shows and eight solo shows to date.  She is in six international publications, including being a featured centerfold Artist with thirteen paintings in the 1999 Winter Issue of Watercolor magazine.  Horne-Kaplan is a signature member, one of only 130 in the country, of the Miniature Artists of America. 

Read More

Barbara Archer-Baldwin • Arizona • waow

Barbara Archer-Baldwin, PSA, MC-IAPS, APAA, PSWC

A Master Medallion holder in the International Association of Pastel Societies, Barbara Archer-Baldwin and her husband John Baldwin relocated to Tucson in February, 2024 after living in Florida for over 25 years. She is an academically schooled professional artist with training at Rhode Island School of Design, Philadelphia University of the Arts, and Temple University's Tyler School of Fine Arts. She has been represented by the Four Corners Gallery in the Tucson Desert Art Museum since May 2024. Her work has been juried into three shows at the Phippen Museum, Prescott, AZ, since her relocation to Arizona. Painting the southwest has really expanded her muse.

Read More

Naomi Shachar • California • waow

Arriving in Mission Viejo California, Naomi developed her artistic skills by studying color theory and practicing drawing and painting techniques. Naomi’s art subjects focus on: Western themes, Equine, Still Life, and the Natural Scapes of land and sea. All of which contribute to the transfer of her artistic visions to the canvas and onwards to the keen eye of the art viewer.

Read More

Debbie Hughbanks • Washington • waow

Debbie Hughbanks is a professional artist specializing in wildlife, equine & domestic animal paintings, as well as figurative and western themed pieces. Painting most often in pastel or acrylic she still finds time to explore other avenues including scratchboard and mixed media work. Hughbanks is an artist that is passionate about the creation of art and finds her inspiration all around her studio located in northeastern Washington State.  Fascinated by animals, nature and interesting people she meets along the way there is never a shortage of subject matter to spark her creative flame. The connection she feels for the subjects she paints, as well as the passion and joy she experiences in the actual creation of the work, is evident in each unique completed piece of art.

Read More