Collectors Edition Visual Art Guide the choice for top art and artists!,

New Best Of Oil Volume II

Judy O. Batterson

Copyright 2009 Judy O. BattersonBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II
Margaret Biggs

Copyright © Margaret Biggs Best Of America Oil Artists Volume II

My images are inspired by the beauty and design created by the sea and her shores. Often bordering between the elements of absraction and realism, my work has been described as both modern and surrealistic.

My mind's eye locks into the shapes created by a collection of rocks, a seashell, the light on the water or the shadows in the sand. Bridging realism and my imagination, I strive to take the subject further than simply a representation. I invite the viewer to join me in the sense of peace that can be found through our contact with the sea.
Charlotte Caldwell

Copyright © Charlotte Caldwell Best Of America Oil Artists Volume II

Drawing and painting since she was 10, Charlotte Caldwell is a member of Oil Painters of America and a consistent winner of juried shows. Having studied art in the Southwest and Mexico, her landscape, sea, and architectural subjects are travel-inspired. Using a visceral and experiential technique, her representational oil paintings absorb the sounds, sights, and feelings of "place." Her work has been purchased and commissioned by private and corporate collections throughout Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma.
Mike Callahan

Copyright © Mike CallahanBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II

"How dull might the world be without clouds and mountains and trees? How utterly drab without people, animals, lakes and streams? And how lifeless the walls that surround us without paintings of such things to take their places when we can’t immediately go and see them?

"I am compelled to paint such things; inspiring things that evoke memories or spark the imagination keeping the insipid well at bay…” – Mike Callahan
For more information on this incredible artist and to view more of his astounding work, please visit his website.
Ritch Gaiti

Copyright © Ritch GaitiBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II

Ritch Gaiti

...paintings of another time, another place

Ritch Gaiti's ethereal paintings commemorate the west- a horse runs free on the open range; a buffalo oversees the plains that he rules; a proud people enjoy a rich culture and an oneness with the land. The paintings are about change, evolution, and extinction-something emerges, something disappears. Each represents the spirit of a time long gone.

"My goal is to put the viewer, not only into another time and place, but also in the subject's heart"
Carol Hartsock

Copyright © Carol HartsockBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II

FACES, PEOPLE, CULTURES, INTEGRITY, PRIDE, CURIOSITY, SURVIVAL, AND TRADITION !!

-         These are the driving forces in my work.

Please let me introduce you to those whom I have had the joy of meeting and who have inspired me. Visit www.cshfineart.com.

-         Oil Painters of America

-         Women Painters of Washington

-         In the “Santa Fean – The Art Issue”, June/July 2008, pp 56-67, “Top Talent – 150+ emerging, established, and most influential artists chosen by collectors, curators, and gallerists.”

-         Studios in Snohomish, Washington and Santa Fe, New Mexico
Pat Lagger

Copyright © Pat LaggerBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II

These thirty-six inch square oil paintings are about secret, sometimes humorous messages which I discover in the wings of butterflies. As I look at all of nature, I see that there is a language of natural design. Patterns repeat themselves in large and small scale-- aerial landscapes appear similar to microscopic organisms. Animal markings are natural calligraphy. So many signs in nature seem mysteriously connected to each other and to me. Although I have fun in the mystery, the messages seem both whimsical and profound. The butterfly represents a spiritual metamorphosis, a reinventing, a conversion.

My interest includes the origin of language. Did early man imitate in his mark making, some of the signs he discovered in the wings of butterflies? The alphabet’s beginnings have been studied by the experts, but I present this imagined conceit as an alternate theory.

Through layering, inscribing, scratching, sanding down and painting over, I imitate time passing in nature. My personal graffiti participates in the signs and secrets I discover, and about which I can only wonder. plagger@sbcglobal.net www.caconline.org, under “galleries”
Mark Larson

Best Of America Oil Artists Volume II
Lee Gabriel Lowell
Adrianne Liwerant

Copyright © Adrianne LiwerantBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II

"A stranger strikes me. I don't want to forget this person. The unanticipated, unspoken interactions—I notice the unnoticed. To stand inches away from another human being that you might never see again is a strange
experience. More than representing a person, I want to represent an experience: the experience of attraction and acknowledgment for another presence, one that we all feel, but rarely admit..." –Adrianne Liwerant

Adrianne currently lives and works outside Philadelphia, PA.
Douglas Miley

Copyright © Douglas MileyBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II
During my decades of painting the Grand Canyon, the Arizona Desert and Sedona areas, I have been most influenced by the early morning and late afternoon lighting. The serenity, solitude and peace are elements inherent in the oblique lighting. I have attempted to convey that ephemeral quality in several of my paintings, including Grand Canyon Light.

I visit the canyon at various times of the year to photograph the moods and transformation wrought by snow and spring mists, monsoon storms and scorching summer sun. Weather changes provide subtle relaionships between light and shadow alongside dramatic intensity. Scenes change instantly leaving the observer in awe of God's creation.

For years the old masters of the West like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran along with the Hudson River School of Artists have been my inspiration. It is my hope to express to the viewer, with a soft touch, the same magic of light, clouds, shadows and rain combined with distant perspectives and horizons.My goal is that my paintings are rich with detail and varied depths of color and contrast.
Irene Polonsky-Resnick

Copyright © Irene Polonsky-ResnickBest Of America Oil Artists Volume I

As a painter I want to portray the lifestyles of ordinary people doing ordinary things. In todays society our world has become smaller and more complex. We see things through the eyes of politicians, good and bad leaders, and the complexity of politics and wars going on all over the world. We are bombarded by pictures over our television and the internet, voices over our radios, and photos in our newspapers. As our world becomes smaller and more homogenized, those unique societies will become obsolete. Old tools will become mechanized and technology will take over. Old customs will be discarded. All will be lost. This is happening at a very fast pace.

Since recorded time, artist have documented their images. These artistic images recorded societies they lived in or travel through. I am committed to preserve my own images, my memories and my observations by putting them on canvas with oils and on paper with oil pastels. I will do this with respect and love for all the people I have met during my own travels. I will also have the joy of reliving those images through my own minds eye. I am also a pet portrait artist.
Maureen Shotts

Copyright © Maureen ShottsBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II

Every day I am fascinated with the beauty of the world that surrounds us. I marvel in gratitude when I am drawn into a secret world that only exists on a semiconscious level when my brain turns off and spirit takes over. That is my joy and what painting brings to my life. I am uplifted, transfixed,transformed.
Dottie Stanley

Copyright © Dottie StanleyBest Of America Oil Artists Volume II

I try to find beauty in the everyday scenes that most of us take for granted; however, my work sometimes tends to have a lonely, forlorn quality. I concentrate on an attitude, a confrontational message to the viewer, or
some other nuance that establishes an inner loneliness. Stylistically, I prefer to work with dramatic lights and shadows. These parameters establish how I portray people in my travels worldwide.

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