Artists fan out on Blackfoot ranches for Dana's Plein Air Paint Out

He quickly mentioned that he'd accumulated the most mileage for the Dana Gallery's 14th annual Plein Air Paint Out, in which artists fan out across western Montana to capture the landscape the old-fashioned way in the peak of summer.

"I love it. I'm completely knocked out. I'm glad to be here," he said.

He said he'd come back again – he hadn't been to Montana since 1976, when he and two others hitchhiked on their way through to Seattle and then on to Alaska.

Ironically, the third-generation cattle rancher from Vero Beach on the east coast of Florida had come this far to paint on a ranch: the Blackfoot Valley Ranch in Ovando.

The little thumb-box painting he was working was small for Sexton. He's also painted 6-by-8-foot still lives and he makes ceramics, too. His works have been displayed in college museums and elsewhere. 

Sexton was just one of 20 painters that owner Dudley Dana invited to this year's Paint Out, a tradition for his landscape- and painting-focused gallery.

"When you're able to get artists in one place like that, you get to see this cohesion," Dana said. They can exchange ideas and talk shop, a change from the normally solitary pursuit of studio work.

They included Sexton, whom Dana met when some of his painters when to a paint-out in Florida, plus gallery staples such as Robert Moore of Idaho, Bob Schlegel of Oregon, and Bob Phinney of Missoula.

After five days of work in Missoula and the Blackfoot, the artists will show about 120 works, plus 30-some studio works that provide an idea of what their paintings look like given an indoor space and more time.

In the Blackfoot, the artists were housed at the Jacobsen Ranch, courtesy of owners John and Linda Ender. They were free to paint in the area, including the nearby Blackfoot Valley Ranch, owned by Kay and Jay Proops.

"We're happy to do it," said Kay Proops, who've hosted the painters at least three times in the past.

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Not far down the road from Sexton, you could find Caleb Meyer with an easel set up next to his truck, pulled over to the side of a large pond.

This year, Meyer painted street scenes in downtown Missoula one day; the Ceretana grain elevator on the Westside another. Despite the rain, a tarp helped him produce a canvas of the historic structure.

His painting of the sparse trees lining the water was more colorful, with a heightened green palette. He was working and reworking the ripples and reflections on the pond's surface, a process he'd spend hours on.

Meyer, an Idaho native who moved to Florence two years ago, is used to painting landscapes, but the plein air offers challenges even when the weather cooperates.

"The hardest part is the changing light. When I started this morning it was a totally different painting," he said.

On a previous day up here, it was overcast which he said creates challenges with shadows, shapes and form, and so he found a tractor with interesting, rigid lines that suited his favored implement, the palette knife.

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The palette knife, in fact, is a favored tool of many the Paint Out artists.

Further up the road was R. David Wilson, a Missoula painter known for his expressive palette and thick application of oil via the knife.

Wilson, who lives on South Third Street West, painted old buildings and alleys near his house earlier in the week despite the weather, and eventually gave up on Sunday, when the rain was the heaviest.

Wilson, who's lately been painting tight scenes lately, took advantage of the rich gardens at the Proops' ranch, which had arrangements of flowers. He'd completed several of those already, and was now winding down with a hillscape.

He was using cold-wax medium mixed with paint to immediately raise his nearly-abstract white clouds off the blue sky.

"You can get up off the canvas right away," he said, using the knife to drift a cumulus farther to the left side of the canvas.

Even though this is plein-air, he said, it doesn't have to look exactly like the scene in front of him.