Artist Quick Draw
The third annual Quick Draw event will be held February 25th and 26th during Art of the Cowgirl 2025 at Rancho Rio in Wickenburg, Arizona.
We are excited to bring this component to our event to showcase 7 artists. All attendees at the event will be able to interact and see the artists in action as they complete their work throughout the day.
The artist’s pieces will be completed by 5:00 pm on February 26th and then will be available for purchase through a silent auction open to all attendees at the event and online that will close March 1st at 11:00 am.
Awards ceremony for artists will be held at 7:00 pm during the evening programming on February 26th. The winners will receive a belt buckle and $1,000 cash award.
Alexa Oxenrider
Alexa Oxenrider (born 2003 in northern Oregon) is a western artist dedicated to oil painting her vision of the American West. Halfway self taught, Alexa has always been painting and drawing horses since day 1. She picked up oils as a high schooler and she fell in love with oils unlike any other art medium. By the end of community college getting her associates(2023), she had refined her style and technique through trial and error.
Alexa did not get to grow up on a farm or have her own horses, but because of that longing for the western lifestyle, it’s what drives her to being a western artist. During 2021-2023, while being a full time student, she picked up work on a ranch in central Oregon to immerse herself in the high desert surrounded by mountains and cowboy culture. Alexa began working hard at capturing the beauty in the landscapes surrounding while placing cowboys on horses depicting striking scenes.
For the next year of 2025, Alexa is accepted to be at the C.M Russell First Strike Auction night in March and the A.R. Mitchell Museum 2025 Women’s Work show starting in August. In the meantime she is hard at work in her studio creating new pieces that inspire those around, sharing the beauty of the west and what lives within it.
Dawn Newland
Dawn Newland is a researcher, author, artist, and weaver of the threads of history. Although she lives on a ranch at the three-state corner of Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota, Dawn is as wild and unhindered by miles of open country as the people whose stories she chases.
Born the daughter of a poetic, word wrangling mother and a spur jangling, old-time cowboy, Dawn grew up immersed in a vanishing culture. That knowledge became the driving influence of her creative life. An experienced horsewoman, Dawn, ranches and rides the back trails. She has driven a team and wagon over hundreds of miles of disappearing stagecoach ruts that once connected early settlements. Dawn has rubbed shoulders with the “old timers” spending many an evening in conversation over a campfire listening to the history of the west as told by men and women who lived it.
To Dawn, writing the west comes as naturally as galloping a horse over rocky trails and tall prairie grass. Researching souls from the early frontier days is her passion and she weaves her findings into historically accurate novel form. Whether in word or picture, Dawn authentically portrays the open range era, the outlaws, the stockmen who rode tall in the saddle, and the stoic women who loved them.
Presenter at the 2023 Arizona History Conference; Panelist at the 2003 Western Writers of America Conference; Presenter at the 2003 West River History Conference; presenter at the 30th annual Women Writing the West Conference 2024.
Kathy Wipfler
Being a ranch raised multigenerational Westerner, Kathy’s work focuses on the history, lifestyle & work of the ranching culture. She has ridden with the real deal ranchers in western and central Wyoming for many years in all types of weather. Day working horseback is part of her income and she has valuable firsthand knowledge of many facets of ranching, which Kathy cherishes. Her work is included in the permanent collections of several important museums of the West & is included on the rosters of several longstanding galleries.
Kathy is the occasional instructor of ‘on location’ painting and has participated in many Quick Draw events in the West. Kathy has also hosted several live horse painting workshops on the ranch she currently lives on. Her work also includes images of the landscape & wildlife of the West, and was awarded the Robert Kuhn Award for a drawing titled “Bruin Trio” in 1915 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Lori Jones
Lori Jones grew up on a large cattle ranch in Northwestern Colorado, where she and her sisters learned the value of hard work, the weight of responsibility and a deep love of the land. Horses were always at the tip of her pencil and remain one of her favorite subjects, along with the family and friends that she gets to cowboy alongside on a daily basis. Lori works from her own references, capturing her life on the ranch on great detail, and creating images that are deeply personal to her. She and husband David raise Quarter Horses and Angus Cross cattle on their ranch in South Central Kansas, and when she’s not in her ranch studio, she can be found horseback in the great wide open or chasing grandkids and dogs beneath the spectacular Western sky.
Molly Mellinger
Molly Mellinger is an emerging artist best known for her equine and western artwork. A life-long creative, she has always been ‘the artist’ among her personal circles. The two constants in her life have been a love of horses and an affinity for visual art—particularly drawing, photography, oil painting, and most recently, sculpture.
Before transitioning to a career in art, Molly worked directly in the equine industry. She earned a degree in Equestrian Business Management from Stephens College in 2013 and later co-founded Horses Helping Heroes, an equine-assisted therapy program for military veterans—one of her proudest achievements. When she stepped away from this path in 2020, she returned to her artistic practice for a sense of stability. It was during this time that she tried oil paints for the first time and immediately connected with the medium. By late 2022, she began seriously investing in her career as a working artist.
Molly’s intimate familiarity with her subjects and her thirst for continued learning are evident in her work. Largely self-taught, she continues to develop a distinct style that uses expressive mark-making to capture the ‘essence’ of her subjects, regardless of the medium. She is invigorated by the endless opportunities for growth and experimentation that art naturally offers and is excited for what lies ahead.
Summer Spitsbergen
Born on a ranch in Montana and raised in Southern Colorado, Summer Spitsbergen has been around ranch lands since she was a little girl. From a young age, she has been romantically influenced by the scenery of the southwestern United States. The natural beauty of the vibrant landscapes, the working cowboy and horse are a common theme in her work. She currently lives on my family’s working cattle ranch. This facilitates much of her inspiration for her paintings and subject matter. Summer is also fond of wildlife native to the Western United States including bison and elk. She has a deep and personal connection with the land and animals by the work done on the ranch and riding her horses on a daily basis.
Yun Wei
Yun Wei (b. 1976) is a representational painter who uses traditional oil painting techniques in all of her work. Yun was born in TianJin, China. After graduating from TianJin Academy of Fine Arts with a concentration in oil painting, she began teaching at the Fine Art High School of TianJin. From 2003 to 2008, she worked as a professional artist for several galleries in New Zealand and Australia. In spring of 2008, she moved to the United States and then traveled with her family around the world for a few years. She currently has a studio in Eastvale, California.
