You can often find Ginny Butcher heading to a nearby painting site. But it hasn’t always been that way. Painting in watercolor and drawing the figure were her main focus in the early years of her life. She received tutoring from her mother, a professional artist who worked in Boston before marrying. There were summer classes with local art groups as well, sometimes painting on location, sometimes in the studio. But over the years she could most often be found, pencil in hand, drawing pad on lap, just sitting around drawing whatever was in view.
As a young adult she turned down a scholarship opportunity to The Rhode Island School of Design because “she didn’t want to paint pictures of toasters and TVs for a living”, preferring instead to pursue other things if she couldn’t “paint pictures of the landscape for a living”. As often happens with many people, life took over and it was 20 years before she returned to the easel. During her fourteen years as a graphic designer, Ginny began woking in pastels after earning a degree in Fine Art. She began plein air painting, tagging along with her husband, the fisherman when he went in search of brook trout and she in search of a painting.
Pastel seemed to be a good fit and soon she was earning awards and recognition for her colorful paintings of the region. But at the end of one summer of teaching a four day a week, early morning pastel plein air class, she decided she really wanted to learn to use oils. She loved the look of other artists’ work in oils and determined to not pick up a pastel again until she had “mastered” oils. Her first experience with them was when returning to a favorite painting spot she had taken the class to. While painting, each time she dipped her brush in the solvent to clean it, she was surprised at how sticky it was, but didn’t think too much about it. It wasn’t until she got home and she read the label of the bottle the “solvent” had come from, that she realized she had been using Damar Varnish; not solvent. Despite the tacky beginning, she carried on with oil painting, realizing they don’t call it “mastering” for nothing.
Ginny has studied with well known artists, traveling out of state often since Wyoming has a higher antelope population than human population and is somewhat isolated from a thriving art community. That isolation can lead to good painting though. Always a lover of the outdoors, Ginny is happy to paint the wide open spaces as well as the cozy corners in the broad landscape around her.
Color has always been her focus as well as a challenge since beginning painting. Getting the color right is the key to making a painting that shows the beauty of any subject. She prefers outdoor painting to studio painting as long as the weather is cooperative.
Making lots of small outdoor paintings on sunny days provides material for larger studio paintings done when the weather turns cold and windy. Although some artists paint in all weather conditions and don’t mind overcast scenes, Ginny prefers the bright sunny days, especially early mornings. But she says “you can make a beautiful from a not so beautiful scene if you get the color right.”
Ginny’s work can be found in many collector’s homes throughout the nation and abroad.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I always try to create paintings that give one the feel of the place; that sense of “I’ve been there!” I like to paint on location when it’s nice out. This way I can see nuances and colors that just aren’t possible to get from a photo. When I do larger paintings I use my small outdoor paintings as my reference. When you’ve spent a few hours somewhere studying the scene with a paint brush and canvas you remember much more than you do if you just snap a photo on your way by. Remembering the sounds, temperatures, weather and any events during the painting session brings a deeper dimension to the larger studio paintings, so others can enjoy the scene as much as I did at the time of painting it.
SHOWS & AWARDS
2001 University of Wyoming Travel Show
2001 Congressional Show
2002 Top 40, Wyoming Conservation Stamp Competition
2002 Rocky Mountain Regional Biennial, MOCA, Ft Collins, CO
2002 Pastel Society of America, Butler Institute of Art, Youngstown, OH
2002 Pastel Society of New Mexico 11th Annual National Art Show
2003 Where the Buffalo Roam Project, Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, WY
2004 Fourth Annual Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibition, Cheyenne, WY
2008 Eighth Annual Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibition, Cheyenne, WY
JUROR’S CHOICE AWARD
2011 Wyoming Plein Air Event, Cheyenne, WY
WYOMING LAND TRUST PURCHASE AWARD
2014 Fourteenth Annual Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibition, Cheyenne, WY
JUROR’S CHOICE AWARD
2015 Evening Still painting purchased for Nicolaysen Art Museum permanent collection
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