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Dan Young, a long-time resident of Silt, Colorado, creates plein air impressions that often depict beloved locations and pastimes of the West. Over the years Young has mastered the challenges posed by painting on location regardless of the season and has earned a reputation as one of Colorado’s premier landscape artists. From his plein air winter scenes dotted with fences, structures, or moonlight on irrigated fields, to the summer fly fishermen and towering mountain peaks of the Rocky Mountains, Dan often captures the boundaries where nature meets man.
Young’s work feels familiar to those who know the wild of the West, sometimes taking the viewer right back to an experience and place. He continually delights in discovering new subject matter in familiar surroundings, and finding inventive ways to paint it.
Young starts his process in the early morning, walking through nature to find his painting. When a certain composition and light stop him, he starts with sketches on paper, often taking “artistic license” in the composition. Then, with an easel and canvas, he references his sketch to block out the painting. From there, it’s a balance of light and shadow, of values and shape, and a race against time as the light upon the peaks or the shadows in the valley move and shift. These smaller paintings are the foundation of his work, always painted outdoors on location. Back in the studio, Young works larger scale, drawing on compositions created in the field to inform the additional information and detail required of a large canvas.
