Category: Art by Madison Woods

All of my paintings feature Ozark pigments I’ve collected by hand and processed into paints. I use titanium oxide pigment to make white for adjusting and blending oil paints made from the Ozark pigments.

When I travel, I also gather rocks from those locations. When I make paint with rocks from other locations, the scene will be one from the homeland of the pigment, and the pigment sources will be specified in my process page or product listing if they are not Ozark colors.

*** Click here to go to my online portfolio ***

The posts below are from my blog and have to do with my art-making.

  • Earth Tone Wall Art to Bring Nature Inside

    Earth Tone wall art brings a sense of calm, peace, and connectedness to a room. How does it manage to do this?

    Nature itself features earthy colors. So when you see them reflected in your surroundings, if you love being …

  • A sampling of the art that I’ll have at the Bentonville Fine Art Festival

    A sampling of the art that I’ll have at the Bentonville Fine Art Festival

    Mark your calendars for this event planned by Arkansas Art Shows. The fair will be held at the picturesque Orchards Park in Bentonville, Arkansas, across from the entrance of the renowned Crystal Bridges Museum. I’ll be there with my art …

  • Little Things can Make a Big Impact

    Little Things can Make a Big Impact

    It’s so easy to get caught up on the big things – the huge projects, major hurdles, or life in general. Sometimes it can get overwhelming. I think that noticing those small accomplishments, moments, and experiences that make up the …

  • 2024 Ponca Color Fest

    2024 Ponca Color Fest

    Join me this year on October 25 & 26 for the 2024 Ponca Color Fest! Last year the weather was misty rain and the event was cancelled. Cross your fingers for a weekend of cool, autumn weather and blazing colors …

  • Making Pickles, Pickerel Frogs, and Washing Soot

    Add to the list of things I’ve done this week planting lettuce, and starting a painting. But washing soot has to come before I can get a lot more done on the painting because I’m out of black paint. I …

  • Paintings from Earth Pigments

    Paintings from Earth Pigments

    My path to becoming a painter was sort of traveled in reverse. I found the pigment first, but wasn’t sure how to make use of them. After some experimenting and research, I made a set of watercolor paints. And then …

  • Hognose Snake: a Master of Deception

    While I was watering my garden the other day, one of the usually reclusive garden residents came out from beneath one of the boards propped up behind a bed. It was a hognose snake, also called puffers, or puff adders. …

  • Char the Bones

    Char the Bones

    Winter and fires in the woodstove are just around the corner. And that means it’ll soon be time to char the bones and antler I use for making a velvety black paint.

    It’s a good thing I don’t have to …

  • Fence Lizard | Starting a New Painting

    Fence Lizard | Starting a New Painting

    I’m working on a painting of a fence lizard using my Ozark pigments in oils. This is the page that shows my progression from start to finish.

    During the hot days of summer, there are lots of fence lizards skittering …

  • Prints of Madison Woods Originals

    Technically, it’s misleading to call reproductions ‘prints’, but that’s how most people refer to them. In actuality, what I offer (aside from originals) are giclée’s. And a giclée is a reproduction made using a commercial inkjet printer with archival inks …

  • Narrow Sized Imaginary Mountain Scene

    Narrow Sized Imaginary Mountain Scene

    While working on my fence lizard painting, I had leftover paint on the palette when finished for the day. So I decided to use it to start a new painting on the same size board, a small narrow 8″ x …

  • Often Heard, But Seldom Seen

    Often Heard, But Seldom Seen

    I have a short list of critters that are often heard, but seldom seen. The spring peeper in the featured image for this post is on that list. I was thrilled to finally get to see one so I could …

  • White Passionflower

    White Passionflower

    There’s a patch of white passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) in my garden that consistently blooms pure white blossoms. The ‘pops’ also look a little different, with a rounder shape than the usual egg-shaped pods. The other passionflowers around our place all …

  • The August Issue of Wild Ozark Musings

    It’s been a while since I’ve posted one of my newsletter issues here. These go out as an email to subscribers, usually once a month. If you’re also a member of the special groups, then you’d also get an email …

  • Art in Fort Smith, AR

    It’s time for Art on the Border! I’ll be at 1000 Fianna Way, Ft. Smith, AR this evening and all day tomorrow with original watercolor and oil paintings featuring the Ozark pigments. Lots of 8 x 10″ giclée prints, and …

  • Art on the Border, only TWO WEEKS away 🙂

    We’ll be Ft. Smith Bound

    Rob’s coming too and we’ll make it an overnight trip so I’m not going out in the wee hours of Saturday morning to get back over there …

  • Ozark Autumn Morning

    Ozark Autumn Morning

    I managed to get this painting’s final touches put on Saturday while at the art market, before the wind became problematic. It’s a landscape on a 10 x 10″ cradle board of an Ozark autumn morning with mist on the …

  • My mind is on art, even while digging ditches, it seems

    Even while doing sweat-inducing work totally unrelated to being creative, my mind is on art. Look at the color I found while I was digging a ditch 🙂

  • Selective weed-eating, moth, and painting

    Yesterday morning, while it was still cool, I did more weed-eating. This morning, I moved to a different section and weedeated some more. I don’t clear cut everything because there are some things that grow in the edges that I …

  • Ooops! I Accidentally Hit Publish.

    Earlier today while working on a draft for a project I am thinking of doing, I accidentally hit the Publish button when I meant to hit Save Draft.

    So, if you’re a blog subscriber, you got a notice of a …

  • Progress on a Painting, or Two

    Progress on a Painting, or Two

    Yesterday at the studio, I worked on two different paintings. One I needed to begin, and the other needed progress towards finished.

    Painting to Start

    The first one I worked on is the one I needed to begin. It’s a …

  • An Earthy Palette for Nature Art

    An Earthy Palette for Nature Art

    Nature and biodiversity reigns supreme at Wild Ozark, and an earthy palette, like the one pictured below, is perfect for capturing it in a painting.

    Scraping rocks with Ozark earth colors. I make nature art with an earthy palette of natural colors native to the region of the scene I'm painting.

    It’s only lacking a couple of things… white and blue. I could do without the …

  • Slow Art, Back to Nature Art

    There are a lot of parallels between the kind of art I make and the Slow Food movment from a decade or so ago. My style is also very much ‘back to nature’.

    Why is it ‘Slow Art’?

    Just as …

  • What Makes the Art My Own?

    I’ve been struggling with a decision about whether to purchase blue pigment or continue using the indigo. While I can source local indigo or grow my own, it isn’t a permanent pigment. Does it matter if I use outsourced pigments? …

  • A Pastoral Scene in Progress

    A Pastoral Scene in Progress

    There’s something magical about the way it looks on a misty Autumn morning in the Ozarks. Several years ago, I took a photo of my neighbor’s field towards the bridge for Felkins creek that’s near our house. While going through …