Aspens by Jake Gaedtke 24×16″ Oil
Jake Gaedtke. Powerful paintings. Aspens is just one example. Look at the magnitude of these trees and the way the light hits their trunks. You can see how deep and dark the surrounding forest is, yet these trees shine. Stunning!
See more of Jake’s work via these links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram
Read a bit about Jake, from his website:
As a second grader, Jake was completely lost and separated from the rest of his class as they toured the Detroit Museum of Art. The paintings that surrounded him had Jake so spellbound that he was cut off from his class, and found himself mesmerized in a sea of art. He wanted so much to be able to do the work he was seeing before him on the walls. That desire never left him.
Like most landscape painters, Jake loved the outdoors and he grew up spending a great deal of time camping, fishing, hiking and exploring. As a teenager of sixteen Jake’s parents allowed him to take the two year Famous Artist Course for Young People. A correspondence art course that started him on a path of learning and discovery of the art world. A high school art teacher fresh out of college bellowed the fire inside of Jake through his passion, enthusiasm, and love for drawing, painting, and art history. His personal interest in learning and growing as an artist is something that has never left him. Unfortunately, other teachers and friends convinced Jake of the old stereotype that one cannot make a living as an artist and he took on other career paths including graphic design and advertising. It was still creative and offered a good pay check, but it was fine art that really beckoned him. After years of struggling with his desire Jake finally took classes from the famed illustrator Gene Hoffman at the University of Northern Colorado. They developed a friendship, and through his mentoring and encouragement helped him grow closer to making the break as a full time artist. He was able to do illustration work for a number of clients and advertising firms. Jake spent a lifetime drawing and painting the figure on the side, but always wanted to learn to paint landscapes and the natural world he was so close to. A plein air workshop with the landscape painter Jay Moore finally convinced him that this is what he wanted to do. He was hooked. Jake took two more workshops with Jay when he invited Jake to take his newly formed one-on-one Mentorship program. After five grueling months of extremely hard work and study, Jake’s growth as an artist took a professional turn and he hasn’t looked back since.
After years of painting landscape subjects, Jake’s interest turned to another passion he has had all his life in the form of seascapes. The Ocean with all it’s moods and mysteries drew Jake into painting seascapes and has added it to his growing genre of subject matter. After living in Colorado for 35 years, he relocated to Bozeman, Montana where he now lives with his wife Janice. Being in Big Sky Country allows Jake to explore and paint the wilds of the Western landscape he loves so much.
Painting from life challenges artists to concentrate every sensory nerve on the information in front of us. We absorb it all, from sight to sound and scent, from temperature to atmosphere – we recreate the experience by channeling those feelings from head and heart to hand, through paint, onto paper and canvas.
My calling as an artist is to share my vision and experience of the natural world and its many marvels. My goal is to couple my knowledge of art history and the learned disciplines of skilled technique with all the emotion I feel “in the moment” when I am painting – to capture that moment of intense awareness for the viewer to experience and enjoy.
In both my field studies and my studio paintings, I invite the observer to journey with me into a world of total sensory awareness of the countless wonders and manifold expressions of nature.
Catch you back here tomorrow!
All images via landscape-art.com, used with permission…
Images are not for reproduction, they are property of the artist.
