Artist Chris Pothier has been a professional artist for about 19 years, creating fine art paintings in oil and commercial projects in a variety of media, and is now passing on his skills, techniques and passion to students in area through oil painting classes at The Dalles Art Center and Mary-hill Art Museum.

Laurel Bushman of Hood River didn’t discover her passion for painting landscapes until eight years ago, but the retired educator’s talent with oils has placed her among 40 artists selected to compete in the 2017 Pacific Northwest Plein Air in the Columbia River Gorge event. Plein Air denotes the 19-centry style of painting outdoors, which was a central feature of French impressionism.