‘Stay Breezy’: Casper illustrator, Oil City News team up to support free local journalism

CASPER, Wyo. — Wyoming has a lot of unique character. For better or worse, one of those characters is wind.

For Casper artist and illustrator Zachary Pullen, capturing that particular character for one of his latest commissions proved to be challenging.

The idea of using wind along with motion to tell a Wyoming story in a single frame came out of several proposed concepts for the piece commissioned by Upslope Media, the parent company of Oil City News. Shawn Houck, Upslope’s owner and Oil City News’s publisher, reached out to Pullen last year with the idea of using a specially created, original piece of art to thank advertisers as well as raise operating revenue.

“We’re fierce believers in buying local, shopping small, and supporting the organizations who build our communities,” Houck said in an emailed statement. “That’s why one of our favorite projects each year is to collaborate with a local artist on the production of a limited-edition art piece, with 100% of the proceeds from that piece going to fund free, local news in our communities.”

“I came up with five or six concepts that I thought would be super cool, and then Shawn came over and we planned out another one, and that’s what we ended up going with,” Pullen said.

“We went with an innovation concept, showing motion and wind without actually painting wind,” he said.

The final painting — titled “Stay Breezy” — packs in all of Pullen’s trademark whimsical style, with a central character crouched on ice skates and clutching an open umbrella, capturing that unseen wind. Whisps of light snow fly off the ice as the man appears to keep up with a moving coal train in the distance. The wind is felt more than seen in the picture, and the vast, rugged Wyoming landscape and winter harshness are captured with humor and drama.

“I started thinking about throwing your coat over your head and letting the wind drag you down a parking lot,” he said, “or kids jumping off of a roof with an umbrella thinking that the resistance is going to stop them.”

The process took roughly a year, with early brainstorming and concepts drawn by pencil occurring early on. After a break, Houck called up and was ready to move forward.

For the model, Pullen called in a favor from a friend. He squatted while clutching an umbrella as Pullen made reference photos. “I torture models,” he said with a laugh. “He put on some dusty chaps and squatted; luckily he’s in good shape.”

Pullen’s flexible model helped to dial in those important details, like the curvature of the spine and subtleties in clothing and hands.

The piece has been turned into high-quality art prints, and also into posters that Pullen will autograph. Those will be given to various sponsors of Oil City News. Where the final home for the original painting will be is still to be determined, according to Houck.

Houck first launched the concept of giving local art to supporters last year, and this year he’s taking it a step further. “We’re going to try and do it every year, where we commission a local artist to create a piece of art that we can use in our fundraising efforts,” he said. “It’s like supporting our community, and then asking our community to support us.”

“I just think it’s a really cool series that we’re very proud of,” he added.

Pullen said he was happy to be involved with supporting free and local news. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask for everybody to pitch in for that news feed at their level,” Pullen said.