Artist Debra Kroger paints the beauty around her

Original Article published in the Ravalli Republic on December 4, 2020 by Michelle McConnaha

Stevensville artist Debra Kroger moved to the Bitterroot Valley from South Dakota. She has a barn in the backyard with her studio upstairs and a business to help support local artists downstairs.

“It’s for Montana artisans and I sell their work as most of our shows have been canceled this year,” Kroger said. “The business keeps me on track with my painting, upstairs.”

The unique shop, Burning Sage Studio & Gallery, is open 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, featuring a variety of artist work including paintings, jewelry, bags, herbal teas and holiday decor in the Red Barn at 501 Main St. in Stevensville.

Kroger is still president of South Dakota Artist Alliance and is working to fulfill the grant she received just before moving to Montana. She has sent her en plein air wildlife paintings she completed at the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge for a post card show.

“The post card show was for everyone, wherever they were sheltering in place to mail in their postcards and we had an exhibit in Sioux Falls,” Kroger said. “Once you start something it is really hard to get out of it. It is hard to find people to take over.”

Since moving to Stevensville in November 2020 artist Debra Kroger has been working to capture the mountains, vastly different from the prairie of South Dakota. She has been doing plain air painting at lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge, a mile from her home.

Photo: Michelle Mcconnaha

Most of her current projects are small for quick completion and feature animals, still life and humans. Her paintings are rich in intense colors.

She is experimenting with batik on rice paper then adding watercolor.

“It looks really cool and that is my winter project,” Kroger said. “Since people can’t travel right now, we’re doing online figure painting. It is called New Masters Academy and they have daily models, and it is recorded. We can do it on zoom for a half hour. It keeps you fresh.”

Kroger has changed her career. She worked in information technology and managed teams for coding and computers.

“It’s a right-brain verses a left-brain thing, that may be why I love stippling, you’re still being very creative but there is a little more control to it,” she said. “I left corporate America to open up an art studio. I dropped it all when I moved here. It was a great change.”

Kroger has attended several workshops to expand her abilities. Key workshops include a week of watercolor portrait workshops in Minneapolis that taught shadows, shapes and figure drawing, and a workshop on en plein air painting in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

She loves to garden and with the change of seasons she has tucked her garden away to focus on her painting.

Burning Sage Studio and Gallery, is open 10:30 - 5:30 Thursday through Saturday, and features a variety of artist work including paintings, jewelry, bags, herbal teas and holiday decor at 501 Main Street in Stevensville.

Photo: Michelle Mcconnaha

“I hope to do more plein air painting regardless of weather,” Kroger said. “We’ll see if I can drag anyone out with me in the winter. The wildlife refuge is a great place. It is so diverse you can do the mountains or whatever you feel like.”

Kroger says she stays with water mediums. She does standard watercolor but also dabbles in Chinese brush painting – ink on rice paper.

“That takes a vast amount of practice because rice paper is very absorbent and you have to learn to control your water to ink ratio,” Kroger said. “I can easily fill a football field with all my practice papers, which it keeps me humble.”

Kroger said that for beginners, watercolor is the most difficult of all mediums.

Burning Sage Studio and Gallery helps support local artists.

“With oil painting or acrylic, if you mess something up you can easily go over the top of it, but with watercolor there is so much foresight that needs to be thought through. You’ve got to know where your lights and darks are going to go before you start.”

She uses gouache, an opaque watercolor, to paint over the top of previously applied paint.

“Using gouache, I can capture the impressionistic colors of life around me,” Kroger said. “Starting with an underpainting of a solid color I then spray a layer of water-based lacquer, so the underpainting won’t wash away as I layer on stippling using the impressionist Paul Signac as my inspiration.”

Stevensville Artist Debra Kroger does standard watercolor but also enjoys the challenge of Chinese brush painting - ink on rice paper.

Kroger is a member of Artist Along the Bitterroot and will have her work at the Stevensville Christmas event Dec. 4.

Kroger paints the beauty around her.

“I just paint what I see,” she said. “Like your early morning sunrises or sunsets that you can’t capture in a photograph, but you can paint. That’s why I do like plein air painting. I like to do wildlife, flowers and gardens. I enjoy creating, it keeps my hands busy.”