Kyle Ploehn is an artist, illustrator and writer living in Billings Montana. He likes to spend the few hours he isn't painting hiking the mountains of Montana.

Continuing with the scratchboard style, I moved on to painting Blue Herons. In the mountains where my family has a cabin there is a great creek that runs all down the valley. One of my favorite things to do is hike along the creek and sketch or photograph what wildlife I come across. A variety of big birds have found home there and on lucky days I get to see them. Most commonly, I have seen this family of great big majestic sandhill cranes, but one midmorning hike I saw a bird I further down the creek that was big like the sandhills, but a striking gray-blue standing gracefully among the tangled bushes. I watched the blue heron for a while, and he watched me, then without warning he took to the sky and flew down the creek. I was so excited, as soon as I returned to my studio I laid out this painting and got to work.

 The original is still available, an 20x20, framed for $700.

 14x14 canvas prints are available for $150 and 12x12 unmatted prints are available for $45. Contact me at [email protected], if you're interested in purchasing a print. Or stop by my website at http://kyleploehnart.com