A Canvas of Colorado

The landscapes that inspire artist Cecy Turner

By Lisa Truesdale

Cecy Turner hasn’t always enjoyed painting en plein air (outdoors), mostly due to the heat, the bright sun and the possibility of bugs. Yet, once the Texas native started visiting Colorado regularly to participate in the Estes Park plein air event nearly 20 years ago, she became hooked on the method—and ended up making a second home in the Centennial state to practice the al fresco art form.

“My husband works from home, too, so once we fell in love with Colorado, we eventually decided to buy,” she said. “I always joke that buying the house was the most expensive plein air event I’ve ever done.” The couple spends every summer in Estes Park, and another two weeks in March, so that Turner can paint winter scenes. “Sometimes I have to paint the snow from inside my car, though, because it’s so cold and windy,” she added. 

With stunning mountain views from her deck and Rocky Mountain National Park just eight minutes from home, Turner paints outdoors as much as possible during her Colorado summers. She fills her time trying to capture as many dazzling scenes as possible—it’s just not the same experience at her other home in Dallas.

“There aren’t as many places to paint outdoors in Texas, unless you want to paint buildings, which I don’t,” she said, adding that she’ll make an exception for the Missions in San Antonio. “Although, I do love my yearly trip with other artists to a ranch in Ennis, Texas to paint bluebonnets, and I enjoy the Riverwalk in San Antonio and the Hill Country near Fredericksburg.”

The latter was the inspiration for her gorgeous “Hill Country Sunset,” an oil painting selected to be part of the upcoming National Oil and Acrylic Society Small Works Exhibit at Mary Williams Fine Arts in Boulder (May 18-June 17). Her oil and watercolor works are also on display permanently at the gallery, which include depictions of Colorado wildlife and mountain and river scenes. Her art is also featured at Wild Horse Gallery in Steamboat Springs and in several galleries throughout Texas.

Although Turner has been painting and drawing for as long as she can remember, it wasn’t until after college that she began to think she could make a career out of being an artist. While working full-time during the day and dabbling in art classes at night, some of her co-workers expressed interest in purchasing her paintings. “That spurred me on to start entering art shows,” she said. “And that eventually led to me quitting my other job in 1972 and doing my art full-time. I have never looked back, and I will never retire from doing something I love so much.” Her work is now regularly in local, regional and national shows, and she’s also a member of several professional art organizations, including American Women Artists, the National Watercolor Society and Women Artists of the West, where she served as president for two years. 

In 1976, just a few years after making the transition to a full-time professional artist, Turner also began teaching workshops and classes in both watercolor and oils. Some sessions are online, while others are in person in Texas, and she’s conducting a week-long plein air workshop in Mexico next year. Her instruction covers topics like composition planning, depth, paint mixing and how to paint snow and moving water. She said she gets a sense of satisfaction from passing along her knowledge and helping others succeed with her art, since she also learned a lot from the art classes she took when she was just getting started.

“Many of the teachers I’ve had have made a real difference in my work, and I still have in my head a lot of things my very first watercolor teacher said back in the early ‘70s,” she said. “The main thing, though, is the outdoor painting; I’ve learned more from doing that than from probably anything a teacher has taught me.”

That includes techniques for making a painting look light-filled, something else she teaches her students, and something she’s proud to know how to add to her own works.

“Two things that always make me happy are a student telling me how I’ve been an inspiration to them, and a customer telling me how a painting of mine brought tears to their eyes, or how I captured the light perfectly,” said Turner. “These are the things that keep me going and let me know that I’m making a difference in someone’s life.”

To learn more about Cecy Turner and view additional works, visit cecyturner.com.