Once upon a time, three wildlife artists were brought together by their shared “itch to be out in nature.” What began as a passing friendship—they were commonly placed next to one another at shows over the years—became a unique partnership that motivates and inspires them along their individual painting journeys. This trio, consisting of Ray Brown, Dustin Van Wechel and Mark Kelso, would regularly travel together to gather reference materials for paintings and drawings, to enjoy the one another’s company and to simply go “traipsing through the wilderness,” says Brown.
Dustin Van Wechel, left, with Ray Brown and Mark Kelso photographing wildlife on one of their outdoor adventures.
“Ray and I first met at an art show way back in 2006—I met Mark a little earlier in 2004 at a different art show—but in 2007, I was placed right next to Ray at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in Charleston, South Carolina—we were both exhibiting artists there,” explains Van Wechel of the group’s origin. We hit it off over that weekend and I had been thinking about going to Glacier National Park; I’d never been there before. During that weekend, Ray, who had been to Glacier before at least a couple of times, expressed interest in going, and so I invited him to join me. The rest is history.”
Kelso chimes in: “It was a bit later when I came into the picture. I think we all benefited from the camaraderie. Gathering animal reference takes a lot of time, and in between those ‘magical moments’ are days of driving, hiking or waiting patiently for the shots. I believe we all found working in a group and traveling together was not only a lot of fun, but also a source of creative inspiration and motivation. It wasn’t long before each trip would inevitably bring up the question, ‘So, where should we go next?’”
Bighorn sheep from a recent wildlife trip.
While the group’s traveling varies depending on schedules, they definitely make time for at least one annual trip all together. “We generally travel up and down the Rocky Mountains from Alaska to Colorado, once or twice a year,” says Brown. “Our most recent trip, and indeed the trip we’ve taken together most often, is centered around Yellowstone National Park. We combine our various show and career responsibilities with a week or so of reference gathering in both Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park, which lie between Cody and Jackson.”
Ray Brown, What Goes Bump in the Night, charcoal on paper, 38 x 31”
Van Wechel shares that “on these trips, none of us will do any plein air painting or sketching. Our sole focus is finding as many animals as we can and gathering as much reference photography as we are able to.” Kelso continues, “Inevitably there’s a lot of driving time on any given excursion, along with frequent hikes to select places. We’ve occasionally done field studies—Ray’s always got his sketchbook with him—but it’s mostly long sessions of driving for hours looking for wildlife, and then occasional moments of excitement and scrambling for our cameras when we stumble upon a subject to photograph. I will admit that we also spend an abnormally significant amount of time in the car discussing where to find the perfect fountain drink and what’s for lunch!”
Mark Kelso, Etherealis, oil on panel, 30 x 52”
The way in which the three artist’s work is also important, so as not to end up creating the same work. “We often photograph shoulder-to-shoulder and more or less end up with the exact same photos,” says Van Wechel. “In fact, we even share all of our photos with each other after a trip. But because we create work based on our own unique ideas and not on the reference photos we’ve taken, we never end up creating the same painting, or drawing in Ray’s case.”
“We share each other’s actual photos without fear of creating the same piece of art,” Brown echoes. “It is wonderful see how much the individual brings to the experience. Our work looks nothing alike. Indeed, even the imagery we each choose to focus on can quite different and certainly the style in which we produce our work is entirely individualistic.”
Mark Kelso, River Dance, oil on panel, 36 x 48”
For instance, Brown notes that landscapes, atmosphere and compositional elements are more individual preference. “If one of us sees something we like, we stop and photograph it while the other two stay in the car and make fun of the one stumbling around outside,” he jokes. “If there is an animal, we all get very excited as we jump out of the car to get shots from various points of view. Unless it’s a bird, then Dustin must be convinced to stop the car because if it doesn’t have antlers horns or teeth he doesn’t care. Mark and I will often have to resort to what we call ‘drive-by’ shooting where we take photos out of the window of the moving car.”
Beginning with Kelso’s paintings, one can see where the artists diverge in style and vision. In Etherealis, we see a peaceful yet powerful depiction of a swan among a snowy landscape. “This piece was inspired by a day in Yellowstone where we got hit with an incoming snow storm despite it only being mid-September,” says Kelso. “This is perhaps one of my favorite works to date…The textures of feathers and snow, the subtlety of value, the varying degrees of softness, all came out beautifully to create an atmosphere that I absolutely love. There’s a feeling of purity, an almost angelic quality to the swan. And that’s very much what it’s like when you experience such a moment out there in the wild. Nature can make you feel as though you’ve slipped into some other state of being, and it becomes almost a spiritual experience. I think the three of us really live for those kinds of moments and that’s at the core of why we paint what we do.”
Dustin Van Wechel, Speed Dating, oil on linen, 24 x 48”
For Van Wechel, his experience in capturing material for Family Hike is what drives him to continue the wildlife outings. “[This piece] was inspired by what might be the most extraordinary experience with wildlife I’ve had to date,” the artist recalls. “At the top of Beartooth Pass in Montana, Ray, Mark and I came across a large herd of mountain goats, maybe as many as 20. The light was perfect, the weather was fantastic—cold and windy, but not cloudy at 11,000 feet elevation—and everything aligned to produce some of the best photographic reference I’ve ever managed to get. It has inspired a dozen or more paintings from me.”
Dustin Van Wechel, Family Hike, oil, 48 x 40”
Ray Brown focuses on the moodier side of things in works like What Goes Bump in the Night, a gorgeously composed charcoal drawing of a bison from a trip with Van Wechel in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. “We were photographing a bison round-up of a managed but wild herd, among many other things,” Brown says. “We had the opportunity to photograph the bison while they were in corrals. Laying down on our stomachs and shooting under the bottom rail of the fence we were able to get a very low point of view not normally available when shooting wild bison. This low point of view accentuated the idea of a looming latent power that I feel bison project. I added the dark background so the shadows of the bison bleed into the shadowy background and combining that with the worm’s-eye point of view gave the emotional impact I was after—what goes bump in the night.”
Ray Brown, Gary, The Forest Chicken, Pauses Briefly to Ponder His Own Existence, charcoal, 22 x 22”
What’s the next adventure for this traveling trio, you might ask? Brown and Van Wechel have plans to return to Yellowstone for a winter trip, with hopes to get Kelso on board as well. In the meantime, keep up with all three artists’ in upcoming shows and events like the Steamboat Art Museum’s exhibition and sale Wild West: Wildlife Masters Past and Present, running from December 1 through April 13, 2024. Also search for them at the Masters of American West show at the Autry Museum and Night of Artists at the Briscoe Western Art Museum, both in 2024. —
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