WAOW Artistry of the West

The WAOW Artistry is slowly being built to provide a page on our site to promote each artist* You can search by name, location or by subject matter to find an artist.

*Artist Source Acknowledgment: Content on these pages is shared with permission and is sourced from the featured member artist’s website and professional biography. All rights remain with the artist.

Pamela Mangelsdorf • Arizona • waow

Although I have been painting professionally since 2005, my excitement for art has spanned many more years. In particular I have enjoyed drawing and painting animals – wild and domestic, large or small since my college days. It is a joy for me to be able to depict wildlife in their natural surroundings.

Nearly all of my paintings are in oil or watercolor. Over the years, I have developed techniques that suit my style of realism. I try to portray each of the animals in as realistic a manner as possible…the details of their feathers, the colors of their coats, and the brilliance of their eyes. There is nothing so penetrating and expressive as an animal’s eyes which is why I concentrate on faithfully depicting that window into their world.

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Katherine Galbraith • New York • waow

Katherine Galbraith is a nationally recognized American artist known for her oil paintings focusing on figurative realism.  Her subjects include portraits, landscapes, still life, florals, and animal subjects.  Her portraiture clients have included notable figures such as President George H. W. Bush, and leaders in various professional fields.  She has established a strong reputation across the United States through exhibitions, awards, and representation in galleries nationwide.

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Bobbe Jones • Colorado • waow

“As an artist rooted in the rugged beauty of Southwest Colorado, I strive to capture the dynamic interplay between humanity, nature, and the land.” Working primarily in oil on linen canvas or panels, Bobbe’s paintings are a harmonious blend of realism and expressionism—each brushstroke a deliberate choice to evoke both the physical presence and emotional resonance of her subjects. 

Bobbe’s compositions often feature birds in flight, antique trucks weathered by time, and the resilient animals and ranchers who define rural life. She is fascinated by the way strong lines and dynamic brushwork can convey motion, while careful attention to pattern, proportion, and rhythm brings unity to each scene. “Through these elements, I aim to freeze a fleeting moment—inviting viewers to feel the wind, sense the history, and connect with the enduring spirit of the West.”

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Susan Eyer–Anderson • California • waow

Susan Eyer-Anderson is a California artist known for her oil and acrylic paintings that depict horses, wildlife, landscapes, and evocative western subjects. A realist artist, she often works from photographic references.  She uses rich color and pays careful attention to light, form, and detail.  She desires to capture both likeness and the heart and energy of her subjects.

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Laurie Riley • Washington • waow

Laurie Riley is an American nature and wildlife artist known for highly detailed, realistic depictions of animals and the natural world. She specializes in capturing the spirit and beauty of wildlife, from small creatures like mice and dragonflies to large mammals like moose, aiming to show both their physical presence and their sentient essence.   She works in a variety of traditional media, including acrylics, scratchboard, colored pencils, and watercolor pencils.

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Deborah LaFogg–Docherty • Florida • waow

Deborah LaFogg–Docherty is best known for her detailed, photorealistic paintings that celebrate wildlife, landscapes and the natural world.  She works in pastel, oil, and acrylic.  Her art practice is driven by a lifelong commitment to nature and conservation. She has participated in artist expeditions, including conservation-focused travels to Kenya to support efforts for endangered species.

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Pokey Park • Arizona & Massachusetts • waow

Pokey Park is a sculptor extraordinaire whose early and endearing love of both nature and art are the foundation for her whimsical, magical creations.  Her kinship and communion with nature and its inhabitants results in uniquely stylized bronzes of animals of every size, shape and species.   Pokey studies wildlife in natural habitats so she can get a feel for their personalities, not just their anatomy.  Their personalities are extremely important for her to be able to give her sculpture a unique attitude.  The environment they live in sets the mood for the finished sculpture.

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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.

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Oil Paintings, Avian Art, Birds WAOW . Oil Paintings, Avian Art, Birds WAOW .

Kim Middleton • Washington • waow

Kim Middleton is an oil painter who specializes in avian art using renaissance era glazing techniques.  This time–honored technique of layering transparent glazes with opaque layers achieves rich luminosity as light penetrates and reflects through the layers of oil paint.  This method creates a sense of volume and showcases the resplendent beauty of the colors and feather patterns found among birds. 

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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. 

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Reneé Marz Mullis • New Mexico • waow

Reneé Marz Mullis is mesmerized by the pastel stick’s strength of color and brilliancy.   She paints southwestern landscapes, interiors and exteriors, florals, and still lifes, both in the studio and en plein air.  She most enjoys the multitude of challenges in conveying a strong sense of luminosity and atmosphere in her work. 

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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. 

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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

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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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Sculpture, Bronze, Birds, Bugs, Animals, Glass WAOW . Sculpture, Bronze, Birds, Bugs, Animals, Glass WAOW .

Diana Reuter–Twining • Virginia • waow

Diana Reuter-Twining, an award–winning sculptor and architect, attributes her focus on the natural world to having been raised on a family farm in Virginia and living in rural communities throughout the American West and South. Her primary training as an architect gave her the tools she needed to understand form” in the round” and to look at sculpture from the ground up.  She primarily works in bronze.

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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.. 

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