2026 Poster Artist: Liz Park
Liz Park is originally from Hershey, Pennsylvania. She has pursued art from an early age, and continued her education by majoring in painting at the Savannah College of Art & Design in Savannah, GA. Upon graduating with a B.F.A. in 2006, she moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she lived and worked as a horse wrangler on a guest ranch for several years. In Jackson, the roots of her career as a modern western wildlife artist took shape. The surrounding scenery and wildlife she encountered there continues to be one of the main subjects of her artwork.
Throughout the years, she has held many interesting jobs on the way to becoming a full time artist. In addition to leading trail rides at the guest ranch, she’s worked in reservations at a ski resort, worked in the design department for a t-shirt company, made hand-made granola bars for an organic energy bar company, and was a ‘bark-tender’ at a dog bar. During this time, she was always creating art and participating in various shows. Liz moved to Bellingham in March of 2017, and then to the Stanwood area in 2020. She was able to make the jump to doing art completely full-time in 2021. In addition to participating in many local festivals and shows, Liz frequently travels to Montana for a major western art show every March.
Her primary medium is acrylic paint on either canvas or varnished wood surfaces, but is also prolific in creating works in watercolor as well as graphite drawings on toned paper. For her works on canvas, she waters down the acrylic quite a bit to mimic the way watercolor behaves, and is able to work quickly with the short drying time to add layers and depth. For her works on wood, she loves letting the natural grain of the wood show through as an integral part of the finished piece. Her main subject continues to be wildlife, and she is fortunate to have photographed many of the animals that she uses in her work herself over the years of her travels.
Locally, her work is available at LIDO Collective in Mount Vernon, Crow in Edmonds, and you can look up her next in-person events as well as current available pieces on her website, www.lizparkart.com or by following her on Instagram at: @lizparkstudio
About the Artwork
One of my favorite subjects over the years has been ravens, and the more I learn about them the more interesting they become to me. They were one of the main species of bird that I saw all the time in the Tetons, and I am so glad that I still get to see them frequently here in western Washington state. I inevitably find myself trying to mimic their noises and talk to them when they fly over the farm I live on!
Artistically, they are a fun subject because you can really play around with color in their feathers - their natural bit of iridescence just begs to have some artistic license thrown in there, which is a huge part of this painting, ‘Double Mint’. I decided to use some more bold aqua greens, as well as some very intense purple as an experiment, and I really enjoyed the effect it created. It was hard to cover up some of that with feathers, so I opted to use more of a suggestion of feathers and outlines that created a really fun ‘stained glass’ abstraction to it.
My partner Rob rightfully pointed out to me that it reminded him of the ‘jazz’ splatter design that was on Solo cups in the 90’s, which led me to name this piece ‘Double Mint’.
I submitted this piece for this year’s festival because I felt like these two ravens are about to have a conversation, or they simply might be plotting something! With their wide and complex vocabulary, their songs are so unique that you can’t be mistaken when you hear one talking to you from the trees.
