SPECIAL NOTE: Denise Burns, founder of Plein Air Painters of America (PAPA), asked Billups to create one ad for their first up coming exhibition on Catalina Island, in 1986, since she knew that Billups had 14 years of professional experience in the field of advertising/illustration. Betty said she would, provided she put together an ad campaign, and that the group do monthly ads, year round. She then set up ads for the following 10 years, that included Southwest Art Magazine, Art of the West Magazine, Art West Magazine, American Art Review, Artists of the Rockies Magazine, Art Talk Publication, and a few others. And as a result of the creation of this original group, and this "ad campaign" the excitement of "plein air painting" has swept around the world, with literally thousands of plein air groups springing up every where!!

In the summer of 1977, Elizabeth Jean Billups (AKA Betty or Betty Jean) had her first one artist museum show at the Montana Historical Society in Helena. This exhibit was the direct results of doing research for a U.S. Army commission that she received, to create a painting of Sacajawea. And this commission came about because the Army had seen a painting Billups had in the U.S. Air Force Art Collection. The painting was called "The Nightingale", and depicted the C-9, a medical plane.

The exhibit at the museum was titled "Inner Feelings" and was the sole reason Betty returned to a fine art career, with the heaviest amount of work being created "en plein air". Plein air painting is created on location, with all the elements: sun, wind, tides, and time, affecting that which is being depicted in a painting...thus forcing the artist to work quickly and observantly...in order to capture the essence of a scene, before, and even while, it changes!
The trip into Idaho and Montana at that time, also brought her back years later, to live on a 200 + acre ranch, and eventually move into the mountains, to a tutor style cabin on 10 acres in the wilderness. Being surrounded by nature at every view, doing plein air paintings became almost as easy as breathing!

MAJOR ART EVENTS
Since 1985 Billups has participated in the Plein Air Painters of America (PAPA) week of creating plein air creations on Catalina Island, and then exhibiting these paintings at the Casino Ballroom. The reputation of this fine group grew with the added efforts of Billups being their Ad Chairman for the first ten years of the groups existence.

1996 saw Billups as one of a dozen artists invited to work on the world renown Murals in Toppenish Washington. She was personally commissioned to create 17 windows depicting a turn of the century bordello, viewed in a second story historic brick building

She has been one of twelve artists, that has been chosen to be one of the "Quick Draw Artists" who create finished paintings, in a given 40 minutes, that are auctioned, and benefit the C.M.Russell Museum. One of the four years that she received this honor, her creation of a Louis and Clark buck skinner went for $1600.


In 2007 she was commissioned to create a 6x16 foot mural for Mount San Antonio College, in Southern California. The entire landscape of the mural was created "en plein air", the clouds were brought to life, using 15 different cloud studies that had been created over the years, and the foreground Eucalyptus trees were created from 3 weeks of photographic research.

As a direct result of this Mt. SAC mural, she was offered a one artist exhibition, which show cased over 150 original plein air and figurative creation at the campus gallery, in the fall of 2007.

INSTRUCTORS OF INFLUENCE
One of her most beloved instructors from the prestigious Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, was Joseph Morgan Henninger. He and his beloved wife, Danica, became Betty's life time art and personal supporters and friends

Another instructor from LAACCD, was a very dear and caring artist-teacher, Reynold Brown, who did many of the old Movie Posters of renown, like Ben Hur. Reynold greatly influenced Billups with his passion and concern for his students...and gave them the "burn" to go beyond what they believed they possibly could! Reynold and his beloved wife Mary Louise became greatly loved and cherished personal friends of the artist. With Reynold's passing, Mary Louise and Betty have remained in close contact over the years...and Mary Louise herself has returned to the fine art field with great creations of her own!

Also at the Los Angeles Art Center of Design, she studied with Don Putt Putman, who introduced her to the magnificent world of color! And his enthusiasm and passion for painting sparked the soul of adventure in her!

Ten years after graduating from ACCD, she finally met Dan McCaw, whose work she had admired since the mid 70s. When she first came to study with Dan, she mentioned a painting he had done back in'77 that she had seen at the Pepper Tree Show...that she drooled over....to her surprise that same painting had just been shipped back to Dan's studio!! And is now in Billups collection!!!
The years of study with Dan at his studio greatly enhanced her style, which had always been rather loose. For years, every gallery she was in, encouraged her to "tighten up" so they could sell her work. She couldn't, or wouldn't, being true to what was in her heart....that which is observed in her work today, both in the studio and with her plein air paintings. Then finally around the mid '70s, "A Day in the Country", a major museum exhibition caused a major influence with American artists: to loosen up!!! Finally, her work became more acceptable!!!

AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
Billups, the winner of Grand Purchase Awards and blue ribbons in national and international shows, has been featured in many art magazines throughout her career, including Southwest Art, U.S. Art, Art talk, Sun Storm Publications, Art West, InformArt, to name a few.
The subjects depicted dealt with her Native American, her Women in White series, and her plein air paintings

PUBLICATIONSThe year 2002 also found her work in a museum publication, coinciding with her one artist exhibition: Clymer Museum: 200 for 2000, a 24 page, full color catalogue of some of her plein air paintings, that were created in the year 2000. (retails for $20, on this web site...less than 60 copies left!)

With late spring 2002, in conjunction with her up coming one artist museum show (Hockaday Museum of Art, Kalispell MT), another 32 page color catalogue will be available, of a collection of most of the 35 plein air paintings she created during her Artist in Residence at Glacier National Park . It also will be an 8 1/2 x 11 format.

2004 her still life ORANGES AND PEONIES was included in the publication: "How did you paint that? 100 ways to paint Flowers & Gardens"Published by
2004 her plein air painting RIVER REFLECTIONS was included in the publication: "How did you paint that? 100 ways to paint Seascapes, Rivers & Lakes"
May 2004 her painting "I Am the Sunlight" received a 3rd Place Award in an International Competition.


August 2005 was the unveiling of her first large (96 pages in full color) publication that is a part of a series on 10 Projects You Can Paint, published by International Artist Publications. The title to her creation is:

10 Projects in Impressionism En Plein Air

This publication was the first the publisher had created en plein air, and has been sold out since 2006, however Billups still has a few signed copies available from her web site.

At this same time, she was offered a full hard bound edition of her work that was to include landscape, figuratives, floral, & drawings....similar to the Dan McCaw book that International Art Publishers had created. However, when she asked to be paid for the 10 Projects book (only $2000 for 6 months of work), the publisher decided not to pursue the hard bound copy!

JURYING

In the mid 90s she helped jury the annual prestigious California Art Clubs' Exhibit, with her friend, Neil Boyle and her beloved instructor, Joseph Henninger. The difficulty was watching, as some categories with only seven entries had six awards handed out, and then one category with over 200 entries, having the same six awards...so many wonderful images, not being able to acknowledge them in the process.
Prior to that, she had juried many California exhibitions, giving awards to abstracts and sculptures, applying the same knowledge and principles needed in creating two dimensional as well as 3 dimensional art. She has also been invited to jury water color organizations, since she juries based on principles, and not her person style or media.

Along with Joseph Henninger, she totally agrees that art should not be "juried" in the first place. If so, only to create a "minimum standard of performance", that is, what level of accomplishment a show should exhibit. Cream rises to the top, and to pick one painting over another, is almost insane! That would be like going to a major museum, and declaring that one of Velazquez's paintings was "superior" to another one, or to choose who is the "better" painter: Homer, Degas or Levitan. Jurying is more a statement regarding the juror, then it is a statement about the art being reviewed!

COLLECTIONS
Her work hangs in collections throughout the U.S., Canada, Israel, Africa, and Japan. Some of these collections also are the home of Picassos, Henry Sharps, and other leading contemporary artists of the U.S. Some of the public collections include: The Royal Palms Hotel of Phoenix AZ (who own 4 of her plein air paintings); the United States Air Force; Alamita Corporation of Tucson AZ (Native American painting), Mount San Antonio College of Southern CA, to name a few. Of the private collections, most enjoy many of her plein air paintings, with scatterings of her studio works.

CLIENTS
In addition to the Marriott Hotels, some of her clients include Bank of America, Fluor Corporation, Max Factor, Knotts Berry Farm, Genstar Mortgage and St. John's Hospital of Santa Monica, California.

TEACHING
Because nothing ever came easy to her, not even her art (which is obvious by such ignorant questions, such as "What color makes flesh?" that she presented to her art teachers in the "early days"). There is a difference between being IGNORANT and being STUPID: IGNORANT is what almost every body is...in anything but their field of expertise! STUPID, is having knowledge, and not applying it!!

Billups firmly believes that what most people label "talent," is really DESIRE, or BURN, or DREAMS, or VISION, or GOAL SETTING or PASSION or WHATEVER you would like to call "IT". No one is just born to it, but this "talent" develops with hard work, focus, desire, time, passion, belief in oneself...did I mention HARD WORK?

She believes the words TALENT and LUCK are used too often in the wrong context. And when they are used in referring to a person's goals and life time achievements, or just writing off these to AGING and TIME (alone) causing them to happen...what robbery! What a sadness, that these people thought it was "happenstance" that brought about the results.

LUCK IS WHERE PREPAREDNESS & OPPORTUNITY MEET!!

And that is why Betty has a tremendous burn to share the knowledge she gleaned over the past 36 years with anyone who truly desires to be able to express themselves. Because without her instructors:
Arnold Simone, Sister Francis Margaret, Fr. Frank Torres, Reynold Brown, Joseph Henninger, Richard Huebner, Lorser Feitleson, Midge Quinnel, Don Green, Rod de la Cruz, Charley Susuki, Andy Fagan, Mildred Walker, Bluske, Polifca and her husband Flury, Mr. Ted Youngkin, Harry Carmean, Glenn Villpu, Don "Putt" Putman, Ted Lukats, Hal Kramer, William F. Reese, Dan McCaw, Sergei Bongart
...and all the others who took time from their careers, to physically share their knowledge (not to mention ALL artists, living and dead, in written publications) who have influenced most living artists today. Without all of them, we would still be doing cave paintings!! (Or we would be VERY OLD, gathering all this info, on our own!)

Billups doesn't know why SO MANY artists (including her "younger self") have this excessive NEED to be "self taught"...there are artists and galleries who claim this ...Unless an artist lived in a cave and NEVER saw or talked to another artist and/or saw their work, Billups does not believe ANY one can be truly self taught, in this day and age!
And those artists who claim not having any "formal education" (like "art school"), and thus claim being "self taught", yet have studied with any leading or accomplished artist, actually has it far better than any "art student", since they probably received undivided attention of their mentor, unlike art students who have to share the instructors time with 30 other students. So, can anyone claim to be "self taught"? Billups really doubts it!

PLEIN AIR PAINTING WORKSHOPS: If you are interested in organizing a workshop in your area..."JUST" do what the movie did: "if you get the students together, she will come!"

All contents, images and dialogs are copyrighted by Elizabeth (Betty) Jean Billups. All rights reserved worldwide, and may not be used for profit, published or reproduced (for profit) in any form without the written permission of Elizabeth Jean Billups.

Since she has designed this as a "teaching" site, if you are studying art, making copies to study from, or copying the actual art work, be sure to mark your art work: "Taken from an image by Betty Jean Billups."

Throughout history, and even today in Europe, artists learn the most from "copying", actually setting up in front of the masters in many museums, and working, to understand the thinking behind the creation. One must not enter shows, or sell as originals anything created as the direct result of copying any work seen on this site, be it studio work or her plein air paintings. (To date, I have already found some artists who have copied my work, and had them exhibiting in galleries. This is very unprofessional, not to mention, illegal.)