About the Artist

Mike Simpson's early career as an artist attracted recognition through his accurate, highly detailed pencil sketches of the contemporary working cowboy.

In the 70’s, with encouragement from Ed Runci (a former Coca Cola girl illustrator turned professional oil painter), Mike began to work in oils.  His subjects also changed, enlarging to landscape, particularly that of the cowboy-in-context.  During this period, Mike had further help from Joe Beeler, founding member of the Cowboy Artists of America.

Mike is no stranger to the West and it’s lifestyle.  From cowboying on some of the west’s largest ranches, horse back packing in the Rockies, being a lease agent on the Crow Indian Reservation, to running sled dogs in the Colorado high country in the winter.  Mike not only lives in the West, Mike lives the West, and that is what he paints...the West.

Respect for technique and generosity toward influences are characteristic of Mike’s comments about his work.  Largely self taught, Mike has relied upon mentor’s advice to develop his talent.

Sensitivity to the West is central to Mike’s work.

“The West is my home.  I believe it to be unique.  The landscape, the buildings, the people and the animals that make up the west is what I paint."

When not in his gallery/studio, Mike can usually be found out painting on location, gathering reference material for future paintings or merely “living the West”.

“I paint in a traditional, representational manner. However, on occasion I will push the limits of a medium in an attempt to create a desired effect."

I will utilize any style of painting to suit a particular picture.

“Using watercolors for their transparency and loose suggestive qualities or oil paints for their opacity, texture and quality of brush stroke, I paint the people, places and things of small town, rural America. From the towering peaks of the Rocky Mountains, to the towering grain silos of Kansas or the small adobe casas of New Mexico, to the fishing boats in a marina on the Northern California coast, the cowboys of Montana, the bewhiskered bikers of Sturgis or the girls on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, they all have a story.

    With my painting kit I travel the backroads and by-ways of America, often on my motorcycle, seeking out the character of my subjects and capture it using the effect of light, shadow, shape and value.”

Today, Mike is a nationally known artist with work in many private collections as well as public and government displays notably the National Park Service. Mike is a signature member of the Plein Air Artist of Colorado and the Western Colorado Watercolor Society and the Plein Air Painters of New Mexico, He is also a member of the National Watercolor Society, the American Watercolor Society, the Oil Painters of America and the American Impressionists Society.