Chris Kolupski - Paint Out West

About this episode

Chris Kolupski shares his adventurous experiences in outdoor painting in the American South West.

The Artful Painter returns! It's good to be back in the saddle again. My friend, Chris Kolupski kindly and patiently agreed to help me dust off my recording equipment and bring the Artful Painter back to life. Chris was originally featured back in episode 56 published back in 2021. That was a couple of years before we loaded up the wagons and moved to the Western Slope of Colorado. In this edition of the Artful Painter, Chris Kolupski talks about his unique artist education experience he calls: "Paint Out West." To me, Chris Kolupski is The Indiana Jones of Outdoor Painting – and for good reason! He's not only an excellent landscape painter and educator, he is an adventurer who loves painting the American South West. Of course, any adventure can certainly come with its own perils. Chris calmly takes these mis-adventures in stride. In this episode he shares the following experiences: He crashed his car into a cow in the middle of the night in New Mexico! Chris made daring attempts to rescue a camera that fell over a cliff! He escaped prosecution after getting caught inadvertently trespassing while teaching a class. In the middle of Navaho land, Chris founds himself on a horse that…

People in this episode

Guest: Chris Kolupski

Topics covered

• outdoor painting
• artist education
• landscape painting
• adventure

Keywords

• Paint Out West
• Indiana Jones of Outdoor Painting
• New Mexico
• Navaho land

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Paint Out West, The Artful Painter, The Wild Dark: Finding the Night Sky in the Age of Light, House of Rain, Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest, Tracing Time: Seasons of Rock Art on the Colorado Plateau

Places: the Western Slope, Colorado, the American South West, New Mexico

More episodes of Artful Painter

• Thomas Windsor - From Heart to Brush · May 21, 2026 · 1h 3m
• Debbie Mueller - A Sense of Illumination · April 17, 2026 · 55 min
• Nicholas Coleman - The Lure of the West · February 12, 2026 · 1h 0m
• s. m. chavez - The Strata of Process · January 1, 2026 · 1h 6m
• Doug and Susie Haugen - There's a Story Behind Every Painting · October 22, 2025 · 1h 2m
• Kami Mendlik - Surrender to the Process · July 13, 2022 · 1h 12m