Florence, Alabama, USA
"Your paintings make me feel peaceful," is a remark that Tommy Thompson hears from many viewers of his work. Today he feels blessed to do what he enjoys the most--painting. This pleasure follows 30+ years of work as an architectural and commercial illustrator. He now concentrates on painting pastoral landscapes that include horses, figures, and architecture.  Thompson's paintings are impressionistic in style and evoke a sense of peace.  His experience in traditional landscape painting has been enhanced through study with Ken Auster, Kenn Backhaus, Roger Dale Brown, John Budicin, Scott Christensen, Paula Frizbe, Kevin Macpherson, Ned Mueller, Michael Shane Neal, Jason Saunders, and Dawn Whitelaw. Travels to Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming, as well as Canada and Europe, have afforded the artist a wide array of subject matter with which to apply his talents.

Thompson was selected as one of ten featured artists to participate in the week-long Southeastern Plein Air Festival in Gadsden, Alabama in April 2009. 

http://www.tommythompsonart.com
http://www.aphototopaint.com

At the edge of darkness, in full-blown sunlight, ordinary landscapes reveal their magic nature to me. 

My studio is hidden in the woods near Montrose, in northeastern Pennsylvania. I have lived the majority of my sixty years in Susquehanna County and while I am four generations removed from the farm, agriculture seems to stream through my veins. My paintings share a unifying theme
of cultivation: the farmed and gardened lands of my immediate surroundings. My plein air pastels show the commonplace in a new light: closely observed and saturated in color.

My paintings have been widely collected for almost thirty years, won numerous awards and enriched the lives of many.

http://www.rodricatilley.com

http://www.westpennart.com/ralph_welsh.htm

Ellen spent her childhood growing up on a farm in southern Illinois, observing nature and color. After graduating from Southern Illinois University with a commercial art degree, she began a long and award-winning career as a television art director in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tampa, Florida and New Haven, Connecticut.

“Painting is a never-ending learning process that challenges me every time I pick up a brush. I approach every blank canvas with fear and excitement.”

She has continued her studies with Ray Roberts and Joe Paquet, as well as many other very talented painters. As an award-winning painter, Ellen has participated in numerous group shows. She recently participated in the 2006 Oil Painters of America Eastern Regional Exhibition in Richmond, Virginia.

http://www.ellenwhitedesign.com

Keith has been a sailor and an artist since childhood.  After nine generations in the Carolinas, he was raised in a half dozen states from the east coast to west and back again.  As an adult, he's lived, worked and painted in Charlotte NC and Charleston SC and now paints from his home studio in McLean VA or his beach studio in Surfside Beach SC.  Painting in oils and acrylic from an early age, truly self-taught, Keith captures not only the scene, but the serenity experienced when viewing the ocean, a beach, tranquil landscapes or simply an exotic tropical flower.  Having traveled extensively - to more than 50 countries - he's never short of material, but finds time to handle commissions from those inspired by similar material.  

http://www.keithwilkieart.com

Susan Williamson is a watercolor and pastel artist from Lower Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. She has studied in several programs including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Temple University, and with Jim McFarlane. She is a signature member of the Philadelphia Water Color Society and served on their Board of Directors from 2004-2006.

She draws inspiration from her passion for the vanishing landscape and the belief that all animals are sentient beings. Her watercolor paintings are easily recognizable with surfaces prepared with gesso or on kimdura for texture. Her pastel landscapes are painted on site in the traditional plein air method, capturing a moment of light and feeling of a particular place.

http://www.susanwilliamsonfineart.com