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.

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

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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Barbara Nuss • Maryland • waow

Barbara Nuss is an award–winning oil painter of landscapes and still life scenes.  She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree Syracuse University, the Schuler School of Fine Arts in Baltimore.  She began her art career at a graphic artist and illustrator. 

Nuss is the author of the book, Secrets to Composition.  She taught still life and landscape painting at her atelier from 1983 to 1996.  She continues to share her skills through plein air workshops and atelier teaching.

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Ni Zhu • California • waow

Ni Zhu turned to painting after studying law at Beijing University and pursuing graduate studies in the U.S. and Canada. Changing her career path, she honed her passion for the media by attending classes at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and taking workshops with master painters, ultimately earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2020.  Zhu’s academic and creative pursuits from law to art and personal transition from China to North America have informed her practice as an artist. 

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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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Christine Obers • California • waow

Christine Obers is a realist artist working in pastel, colored pencils and oils.  She creates beautifully sensitive paintings of animals, people, landscapes and still life.  She likes to use photographs for her initial inspiration.  She then edits and enhances them to create pleasing compositions that create rich emotional connections with her subjects.

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Sharon Markwardt • New Mexico • waow

Sharon Markwardt is a life-long artist with a Fine Art degree and a Biology minor.  She grew up in Texas, the daughter of an Artist and an Engineer, and now enjoys an artist's life in Santa Fe, NM. The colorful style for which she is known emerged in the last decade or so, and paralleled her entrance into horsemanship, with its associated injuries and challenges. She laughingly credits her mare with “throwing her into western art!" since her colorful style emerged after a fall. She had the courage to get back in the saddle, and eventually learned the value of calm assertiveness. A new boldness entered her art, and she moved from watercolor to oils.  Her color perception altered, as did her subject matter: stronger, brighter, more Western.  Sharon enjoys pushing her colors and designs while retaining realism and attention to detail, injecting humor whenever possible.

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Christine Drewyer • Maryland • waow

Christine Drewyer takes great joy in painting the powerful tranquility of the Rural American landscape or the beautiful, peaceful beasts of our planet.  She hopes we will always reside in a world where we can enjoy these simple pleasures.  She seeks to create art that will transport the viewer beyond the senses, free of thought and self-consciousness.  The paintings then become an Instrument through which the viewer and the artist glimpse the joyful oneness of which we are all a part.

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Linda Eppinger Johnson • Wyoming • waow

Linda Eppinger Johnson was born and raised on the front range of the Rocky Mountains. The diverse ecosystem influenced her western and botanical paintings, pottery and tiles/murals.

Linda uses her own experiences when creating her art. Sagebrush, wildflowers and even horned toads are in the hills of her front yard and find their way into her paintings and pottery.

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Landscapes, Skyscapes, Pastels WAOW . Landscapes, Skyscapes, Pastels WAOW .

Katherine Irish • New Mexico • waow

Katherine Irish made a conscious decision to contribute beauty to the world through art when she returned to New Mexico. The infinite variety of color and abstract patterns found in New Mexico skies offer a limitless source of inspiration. Cloud composition and colors are ephemeral. However, what is constant is that the beginning and end of each day is marked by the rising and setting of the sun. The beauty found in the skies inspires us.  Irish’s paintings are an effort to bring focused attention on our shared connection with the natural order.

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Elizabeth Rouland • Colorado • waow

Elizabeth Rouland O'Dell earned her B.A. in art from the University of California, Santa Cruz, graduating with honors in 1991.  She worked with printmaking techniques including intaglio etching, drypoint, and monotypes during her college years. More recently, she has returned to focus on oil painting, and she is ever enthralled with the challenge of interpreting the world around her through color and texture. 

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Rose Irelan • California • waow

Rose Irelan is inspired by the diverse landscapes of the coast, desert, and mountains. Her paintings capture the energy and changing light of the natural world, using expressive brushwork and a deep appreciation for color. Whether painting the rugged shoreline, the quiet beauty of a desert morning, or towering mountains, she strives to convey the feeling of a moment rather than just a scene.

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Lori Cusick • Texas • waow

Lori Cusick loves to create art of the land.  Her style is colorful and stylized.  She received her Bachelors of Fine Art degree from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn,  New York.

Her process begins on location with oil paints and canvas in tow.  Leaving the studio behind and working in the great outdoors provides and endless source of inspiration. 

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Elizabeth Sage • Arizona & Colorado • waow

Elizabeth Sage honed her self-taught ability to see and render the most difficult of images and precious of moments through a corporate career in graphic design for over 20 years.  In 2000 she changed her calling and passion to full time professional fine artist, creating powerful imagery and stories on canvas.

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Dana Lombardo • Oklahoma • waow

Dana Lombardo resides by the shores of Grand Lake in Northeast Oklahoma. There she draws endless inspiration from the picturesque surrounding landscape and the vibrant local culture. Her artistic works manifest a deep-rooted affection for the land.  She also depicts Native American themes in which she endeavors to preserve and share the depth of their heritage.

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Susan De’Armond • California • waow

Susan De’Armond turned her passion for art into a serious pursuit of a fine art career in 2007.  Plein air painting takes her back to memories of trekking through the woods on family outings, or memories of her grandmother tending her garden filled with her irises and lilacs.  When De’Armond gets out into the woods or the wild, she says it feels like coming home. 

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