I am a plein air painter – documenting the modern landscape. Color, light and atmosphere are the anchors in my paintings.

I describe my work as contemporary impressionism—modern, but reaching back for inspiration to the pioneer impressionists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries—the folks who walked or rode a horse or a buckboard out into the desert, mountains or coastline to make art. For me, it’s driving to some wild, beautiful spot with my little teardrop trailer, setting up to camp and cook, hike, sleep and observe until I’m ready to paint.

I paint the foggy or clear of the place—the smell of the sage, the hummingbird – fiercely confrontational, the sleepy pelicans and hungry seagulls. The deer, the coyote—hundreds of cottontails. We’re all in this together—me at sunrise with a by-then cold cup of coffee, casing the joint—the native creatures taking their measure of me, and I of them.

My happiness and gratitude at being here is the point—that I’m alive and seeing the magic of the rising sun on a brand new morning. The temperature of the day, the way the light changes as hours pass, the way every moment is a glimpse of precious beauty.

Who would not want to do this?

@sparktaylorstudio