Congratulations Bill!

I became acquainted with Bill Guffey about 3 or 4 years ago when I discovered his Virtual Paint Out blog. It is such a fantastic idea: use Google street view to visit and paint scenes from all over the world. The neat thing about his blog is that he chooses a place and those who want to participate select a scene from that location to paint, so it’s almost like being together on a paint out! Take a look at the blog and see how cool it is here.

I also began following his Facebook page, where he astonishes with daily plein aire studies. Seriously, this man makes me feel like such a slug! He is out in all kinds of weather, and his work is always inspiring. (At right, one of my favorite of his palette knife paintings)

Masonville, Colorado                             
© Bill Guffey 2013                               

Anyway, Bill is the featured artist in the Dick Blick ad on the inside cover of The Artist’s Magazine! Yay Bill! A well deserved honor. See his inside front cover feature and more of his plein aire studies on this blog.
About a year ago he told a story about being on a paint out and being approached by a young man who told him that his dad was a painter too – in fact he’d become sort of famous. According to the young man, his dad painted photos. Bill said he hoped he had misunderstood what the guy was telling him, and that he painted from photos. But coincidentally, I went to Asheville about a week later and visited Blue Spiral gallery, and guess who was the featured artist?!? Mr. “I paint ON TOP OF PHOTOS.”
Yep. For realz.
He prints off a photo and then paints on top of it. And somehow he managed to finagle a solo show at Blue Spiral, AND a feature in The Laurel of Asheville, the local arts magazine.
As Bill said, it hardly seems fair that a hard working artist who is willing to stand outside in all sorts of weather and diligently hone his craft should labor in obscurity while a lazy cheater gets noticed (actually, I think those were my words, but the sentiment was there). But all that’s changing now!
Good luck Bill – you deserve all the best!

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