On the Way to Bridal Veil Falls – Telluride
11 x 14 in.
Oil on panel
$1,100
Available through the artist here

When there is a world out there full of beauty and inspiration, who wants to stay home in the studio? For Alison Leigh Menke the great outdoors is the ultimate studio. Last year she lightened her load and set out on the open road with her paints. Equipped with a painting shelving system she built in the back of her SUV, she has been all over the country deriving inspiration and knowledge from magnificent sights and new communities of painters.

On the Way to Bridal Veil Falls was created during 2018 Telluride Plein Air where she was honored with “Artist’s Choice Award”. This painting expresses Alison’s sense of adventure as she leads the viewer down the road toward the mountains and in the distance the rushing water of Bridal Veil Falls on the right.

Alison works on an ultra-slick gessoed panel, and other artists often ask her how she manages to work the surface, let alone manage to get the paint to stick. She replies that “it’s a matter of layering the paint with a solvent-free gel so that the underpainting becomes a tacky surface I can build upon.” Alison’s non-absorbent surface allows paint to maintain it’s rich, oil-based look, and it’s ultra-smooth quality doesn’t allow beautiful bristle marks to settled down into ‘valleys’ that are found on textured surfaces.

A fourth generation artist, Alison graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in Art and Art History. Her journey into landscape painting began in 2011 when a three-week solitary trip to Colorado turned into a five-month foray into plein air. Between the plein air seasons of 2016-2018 she attended 48 festivals around the country and was honored with 39 awards. Her successes have garnered attention from magazines and various publications.

2019 is an exciting year for Alison, who is attending many top-notch juried and invitational competitions from coast to coast. These events include Southwest Plein Air, Door County, Sonoma Plein Air, Bucks County, Sedona Plein Air, and Annapolis among others. Please visit Alison’s website for more information on the painting featured above and her calendar of events.

To view more of Alison’s work and sign up for her newsletter, visit her website. Also follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

Allison is represented by Marta Stafford Fine Art and HorseSpirit Arts Gallery.