The fallow farmland, the Wasatch Range in the north near Salt Lake City, the historic town of Huntsville, even further north, and the ski resort of Park City provide plenty of Utah-style inspiration for oil painter Doug Braithwaite, unless he's taking time off from the countryside to hit the southern desert areas of Helper and Torrey, his favorite spots of all. "You can paint pastoral scenes with farmland and tractors here, or go to the mountains where there are farm settings with mountains behind them," he says of the area around his home of Sunset, a suburb of Salt Lake City. About the south, he contrasts, it's "the light quality, red rock, reflections, it's a different thing; it keeps me interested. I'll spend time in the summer going from place to place, painting three or four small studies in a day." Avoiding the banal is the biggest test of his abilities. "A lot of farm scenes have been 'done,'" he explains. "Doing them in a way that is not a cliché is a challenge."

The 39-year-old oil landscape painter describes his style as realist. "It's about finding the balance between looking real and looking like paint," he says. "I feel like my paintings are real in a photographic sense." Take his image of Sugarloaf Mountain Boulder, jutting in rocky brown contrast to the deep jade and azure of trees and sky, or his entirely shades-of-green LIGHT THROUGH TREES, both of which are reminiscent of a photo taken from a moving car.