E. Denney Neville is an accomplished painter who has made a career of painting the majestic landscapes of Wyoming. He has also worked as an illustrator, cartoonist, and in the animation industry. He earned a BFA from the Art Center College of Design. NeVille also assisted Stan Lynde for six years producing the cartoon strip Hipshot and Rick O’Shay. NeVille lives with his wife in Byron, Wyoming.

Describe yourself as a painter. I would like to be described as a creative painter. Just to be technically good would be totally boring. The real joy in painting is to explore, invent, find and to even make the unnoticed and unconsidered a work of art that gives a sense of deep satisfaction. Without the knowledge of creative editing, a painting is flawed and lowered in its potential to fully achieve a perfect art. Being flawed ourselves, as we work and learn we should grow in our understanding toward being a better artist. As we paint sincerely over a period of time our work should become more perfect, though would still be less than perfect. The lofty concept of perfection will and should always annoy us. Thus annoyed there will always be opportunity to strive toward being better. I find myself on a soap box preaching. Possibly to no avail except to insert a cartoon (below).

Some artist said, I don’t know who, “We must paint at least four full days a week to keep from getting worse.” That artist was profoundly correct. Practice is an absolute necessity. A knowledge of art history is an absolute necessity and should not be narrow. We should understand something about all the schools of art and note that traditional academic training is in some way fundamental to all of them. If I were asked to list the two most important issues in good art and correct training it would be drawing and design, and in a curious way, to me, they are one in the same.

You have experimented with different styles. You will notice in the samples of my work that I have explored painting in several different styles. They have all helped in my development as a painter. Not all were successful. Some were to a certain extent. The less successful are buried beneath another painting, hopefully more successful. I like painting over old paintings and leaving some of that surface as part of the later painting. The unexpected, unplanned and the accidental things, if noticed, are some of the creative surprises that make painting fun for the way I like to work.

How do you approach a new landscape? Do you work en plein air, from pictures, from memory? I really like painting from memory, but feel it a necessity to paint plein air and use photos as a reference, but only as a reference. If you copy a photo, per se, you will paint design mistakes and that can totally ruin a work of art. Cameras can, and have become, the most dangerous crutch in art if their use is abused and misunderstood. All developed technology can be of benefit in creating good art, but can also be a huge deficit if used without knowledge of a few certain things, mostly in the manner of distortion and alignments. I often hear people in workshops lamenting that they don’t like a certain painting they or someone else did. My answer is always, “That is a good sign that you are learning to determine the successful from the unsuccessful, the disaster-pieces from the masterpieces.” Two steps forward and only one back is still progress. The step backward can be the one most important when we recognize it was and is the wrong direction. My approach to a landscape painting starts as a design. From there I start loose then tighten the detail, but only to a point where I feel why I wanted to paint the scene in the first place.

Visit E. Denney NeVille’s website.

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John Berry is an artist and naturalist. Berry grew up in the desert areas around Sparks, Nevada and the influence of the outdoors and the Western landscape are apparent in his work. As he explains, “I used to list my accomplishments, or I should say, accomplishments of my work…I’ve come to realize that that matters little. What awards, collections or museums hold my work matters not at all. What matters is the work. What matters is how the work connects or speaks to each individual. So with that said, I’ll let you, dear art lover decide for yourself, what you think/feel about my work. Enjoy.”

Tell us about your evolution as an artist. That’s a hard question to answer. It has run the gamut and continues to change. I studied Illustration at BYU, then proceeded to work as a freelance conceptual illustrator for over a decade. This was a fun and challenging career, but over time it began to wear me down. Always having to meet deadlines, having to satisfy the vision of someone else. I realized that I could not continue to do this. I quit advertising; quit actively seeking illustration jobs, I just began to paint for myself. That in and of itself was hard. Paint what? Paint how? It took a lot of introspection to figure that out. Initially I painted wildlife, then on to pure landscapes, all this in an academic approach. What I began to see was that the land, especially the desert was a constant source of inspiration. As I delved into that more fully, I realized it wasn’t the land itself (the locations or scenes) that pulled on me, it was the emotions, moods I felt while on location, while hiking or backpacking in this landscape. That really changed the direction of my work. it became more abstract, relying more on shapes, patterns and color to express those emotions. Quite the evolution from conceptual illustration to where my work is now. Though it seems once I’ve said what I want to say with one voice or style, it all begins to evolve again.

You list Maynard Dixon, The Group of Seven and Victor Higgins as your influences. Whose work today gives inspiration? Yes, those artists were a great springboard for my work. Mainly based upon their subject matter being the Southwest. The Group of Seven for their abstraction and paint quality they used on the land. Today? I find myself drawn to the work of the Post Impressionists, the Abstract Expressionists and several of the Fauves. The actual “who” fluctuates based upon my mood or my actual work in progress.

Your colors are wonderful. How do you approach colors in new paintings? Thank you. Color is what usually draws people to my work. I have never considered myself a “colorist” or even someone that knows much about color. I think it’s more instinctual for me. I rarely set out to create a work based upon a certain color palette. Obviously color has a lot of power. It can dictate mood and emotions; it’s a very important tool for me. When I begin to paint or have an idea for a painting I start laying in color fields, usually quite randomly. This type of approach is very experimental and dangerous, but I feel it feeds my next move. Then I see what certain colors will do next to others, what mood it evokes and so forth. If it doesn’t create the effect I desire, I’ll start over. Piece of cake, right?

Visit John Berry’s website.

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Sunny Taylor is a talented painter with a project called The Lines Series. She received a BFA from BYU and an MFA from The Ohio State University. She taught as an assistant professor from 2008-14 in the Studio Arts program of BYU and now lives and paints with her family in Utah. Taylor was profiled previously on The Krakens for The Objecthood of Painting and 3D Sculptures.

Do you find yourself looking for patterns in your day-to-day life? I see patterns everywhere I go, yet as I think about it, I very rarely find inspiration in patterns and forms within my own home and day-to-day living.  I am generally most drawn to the patterns and forms that are in the ‘periphery’ of my life.  I’m constantly averting my eyes to the sides of the road while I am driving, or the corners of the store where structures meet and converse. When I look through the files of scrap photos I’ve gathered over the years, most things that inspire my work are found in architecture, dumpsters, parking lots, backyards, demolition and construction sites.

Tell us about your workplace and habits. I have two girls, 4 and 2 years old.  Their schedule determines my schedule.  I am lucky to have good nappers, so at 1:00 in the afternoon, I can often get in a good hour or two of painting.  On Wednesdays, my mother in law watches my girls, and I work as hard and as fast as I can in my studio.  I also work a couple evenings a week.  When I have a deadline for a painting, I stay up late a lot, and I don’t get enough sleep. : )

My studio is a spare bedroom in our home.  Having a studio at home is SO helpful.  If I have even just 20 minutes available, I can run into the studio and make a dent in a project.  I love it.  I most often listen to podcasts, audiobooks, interviews and radio programs when I paint.  Every now and then I will listen to music.  Usually I turn on the music when I am measuring and can’t concentrate on stories and other information at the same time, or when I am grappling with a color or compositional problem and need to focus on resolving the visual problems at hand.

Visit Sunny Taylor’s website.

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Michal Luch Onyon is an accomplished designer, illustrator, and painter. She received a BFA from the University of Utah and began oil painting several years ago after a career in illustration and graphic design. She adds, “I think all these past experiences help me as I discover that painting encompasses more than a lifetime of challenges and ideas. It is a timeless feeling to escape everyday life by trying capture and reinvent from a world so much bigger and varied than we can imagine.” Onyon was previously profiled on The Krakens for A Family Tree of Talent.

What inspires your creativity these days? When I paint I am striving to create an alternate reality. I attempt to manipulate the world in varying degrees. How much am I using realism and how much fiction alters it? In every painting I am making problems and then solving them. I love rocks, trees, birds, people, patterns, animals, colorful geometric objects…and everything else. I struggle to make emotional, edgy work and keep coming up with lively, happy stuff (should I quit using orange?) If I could get over my need to be pleasant and in control and make life symmetrical, I would be a different artist. I try for harmonious yet exciting changes of color. Different artists amaze me. At any given time I have a stack of open resource books: Field guides to birds, Maynard Dixon, Gustave Klimt, Diebenkorn, Illuminated Renaissance Manuscripts, Hieronymous Bosch, Modern Primitives, photographs of landscapes, Anatomy.

Visit Michal Onyon’s website.