Raney Rogers

Naturalist Painter

In the spring of 1981 I moved with my husband Ken to the remote northwest corner of the Blue Ridge mountains from our Piedmont North Carolina roots and began farming christmas trees and ornamental evergreen shrubbery for our new nursery business. Because I did not take to farming too happily it was not long before I traded my hoe for a paintbrush and began honing my skills as an artist. I studied art in college and then with internationally known artists such as Robert Batmen to learn from as many other artists as I could different techniques and styles in order to improve my own. The very painting which I began when I "walked out of the fields" sold through an art gallery in Winston Salem and the rest is my history as a professional artist.

I researched and scoured the 36 acres my husband and I bought for its abundant flora and fauna which I sketched and painted daily. I learned about indigenous plants and animals, some of which lived on the property. This was the time frame during which I became serious about environmental issues and how what we do on this planet affects the animals and plants we live amongst.

Whereas the primary focus of my paintings is wildlife and its environment, I also paint landscapes which represent the true pristine beauty of Ashe County, where I live, and which are being destroyed by development to the area. I was featured in a television documentary about development in the North Carolina mountains along with one such of my beautiful scenes which has been replaced with a Wal Mart and huge parking lot.

I continue to paint regularly and still focus on the land and animals as they are instructional in how they live and what their requirements for survival are. I own the Acorn Gallery in West Jefferson, which was the first art gallery in what is now a "fine arts district". My art includes miniature sketches as well as large full scale oil paintings. I work in watercolor, oil, acrylic and pastel and love to paint plein air . My work is in both private and corporate collections throughout the US and five other continents. I have won numerous awards for my work, have been published in Our State magazine as well as other magazines, featured in the North Carolina Wildlife Calendar for the last five years. I teach workshops throughout the US and travel to Europe and Africa to paint plein air for sold out shows in the US. I am the Artist in Residence and Director of Cultural Arts at White Hart Woods Center for Leadership and Cultural Arts in West Jefferson.