Jeff McKay Bio

I believe art is an escape for most people.  It takes them to places they've never been before,  or it retruns them to places they love.  That's what I enjoy most about painting landscapes.  Painting is neither a hobby nor a pasttime for me, it is a calling...it is something I have to do every day.

I was born and raised in Arkansas.  My wife, Sandra, and I have six beautiful children.  Early in my adulthood fly fishing was my passion.  In my 20's I frequented the world-famous trout rivers of Arkansas.  Back in 1998, we had a newborn baby and two toddlers.  Needless to say my time on the river vanished as my commitments at home grew more significant.  Yet I still longed to get to the river.  I remember sitting in a doctor's office one day reading a Field and Stream magazine.  In that magazine I read an article about an artist named Mike Mahoney, who lived in Montana and painted trout.  His paintings were astonishing!  That night I went home to my family but I could not forget the images of Mike's trout paintings. That evening, as I lay trying to fall asleep, I kept thinking to myself, "That would be the perfect hobby for me.  It would connect me to my passion for trout fishing and I would have a hobby I could do at the dining room table after we put the kids down for the night."  Having never had an art lesson, I said to myself, "If he can paint trout, I can too".  So I bought some watercolors (because that's what Mike used), paint brushes, and watercolor paper; then set out on a three year journey to teach myself to paint.  I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  I would stay up at night, sometimes until 2:00 or 3:00am, paint fish and finally go to sleep, only to wake up a few hours later to go to work.  I did this for years and eventually, I got pretty good at painting fish.  I learned that if you do something long enough and with enough perseverance, eventually you master it.  That's when I knew I could learn to paint just about anything.  As time passed, people began asking me to paint life-sized portraits of trout they had caught and released.  I began painting professionally while still working a full-time job.  I painted fish for 15 years.

At the encouragement of a fellow artist, I switched from watercolors to oils and began expanding my subject matter to include the Rocky Mountain landscapes I had seen as a child on family adventures to Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and South Dakota.  As my art evolved, I honed in on Rocky Mountain landscapes, especially aspen tress and snow capped mountains.  Painting Rocky Mountain landscapes connects me to childhood memories of my father and our adventures all across the western United States.  Each time we loaded up an old GMC Jimmy, and eventually a Jeep Wagoneer (with wood paneled sides),  I became enamored with the thought of going west to see majestic mountains, ghost towns, old silver mines, bison, antelope, and the mysterious quaking aspens of the great American West.  Our trips west were the highlights of my childhood.  I saw the Rocky Mountain states as a place where the American spirit thrived and a place without limits or boundaries.  To say the least, it was magical for me.

I am a self-taught artist and it took me years of practice, thousands of paintings, hundreds of books, and a few workshops to perfect my style and my subject matter.  Today, I am a professional artist represented by galleries in Colorado, Utah, Montana and New Mexico.  My unique,  trademark style is characterized by bold colors and strong palette knife strokes..  My wife and I still live in Arkansas raising the last our six children, some of whom are now grown.  My life as a father, husband and artist has brought immense joy to my life.  I'm one of the lucky ones.