East Windmill Canvas Print

When I painted this scene, my mind pursued the path of my family history. In 1886, Great Grandpa James Mapes took his family from New York state to Nebraska. Along the way, he dug wells. When they arrived in western Nebraska, they settled and built a house a few feet from this well site. He dug a well. Two years later, a prairie fire burned the house down. The Mapes’ three-year-old daughter perished in the fire. James took his family many places after that; moving to the next well digging site. But two years later, my grandmother married, moved back and spent her life on her first Nebraska home property. Our family sold the property in 2008 to pay for my Mom’s care. I conceptually have one hundred twenty plus years of family history in this painting.
I painted the windmill scene with Dr. Ph. Martin’s Hydrus Watercolors on Arches white 140 lb. Cold-Pressed Paper. Some of the details are ink.

Bonnie Young connects to rural life and landscape because they reflect her roots. She discovered the love of painting the light and shadows and their effects on her subjects as she studied nature. For her, painting is an artistic articulation of life captured in watercolor or digital creations. Watercolor allows her to build depth and detail through layering glazes. While still attending elementary school in a one room schoolhouse in the Nebraska Sandhills, she began painting. For most of her adult life, she lived in the midwest and west. She studied art at Kansas State University, the Canton Museum of Art in Canton, Ohio, and the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, Colorado. In Colorado, she studied under Janet Nunn, an award...