After graduating from art school, Jay Moore worked in a graphic design firm in Denver for two years before working on his own as an illustrator. The pressures of illustration pushed him to a level of professionalism that he carries with him today. But it was not until the Art Students League of Denver offered a workshop with painter, Clyde Aspevig, that Jay truly considered abandoning illustration for fine art.

An in-depth study of the great landscape painters revealed to Moore a common denominator; all these artists painted directly from nature, developing numerous preliminary sketches and color studies outdoors, a practice commonly referred to as plein air. It is from these field images that Moore's larger studio canvases come from...