About

Artist Statement

I believe the outdoors should be an inclusive place and everyone should experience nature in asafe and sustainable way. I see anyone with a creative process as an artist and I feel getting more artists outdoors will help inform and create a more inclusive environment.

I use traditional water-based mediums to develop educational and inspirational resources that equip people with the necessary skills to keep themselves and nature safe and to encourage them to go outdoors and be inspired by Nature.

I like painting watercolor En Plein Air as I feel I'm collaborating with the water, and nature, to reach the desired outcome.

Biography

Rich Chabot is an outdoor educator, storyteller, and watercolor artist who lives and works in the Portland Oregon area. He currently develops educational and inspirational resources to help other artists get outdoors while keeping themselves and nature safe. He loves using Plein Air studies to create loose, expressive landscape paintings and using ink and wash to create educational illustrations.

Having been born in the before times, the time before the internet and cell phones, he's loved storytelling, especially visual storytelling, and graphic novels since he was able to read. When younger, he used simple illustrations, comics, and even dioramas with models while experimenting with visual storytelling methods. As a self-taught artist, he continues to develop and hone his visual storytelling and plein-air painting skills.

His awe and appreciation of the outdoors also started at an early age and continued to grow as he worked in numerous outdoor environments during his 20-year military career. This is where he learned how to keep himself safe in any environment and found a passion for education and development.

After retirement, he searched to find a new calling that would combine his love of the outdoors, storytelling, and education with creative inspiration. During the pandemic, he saw that people had the need to connect with the outdoors but lacked many of the principles needed to be safe.

He decided to help educate artists on how to combine stewardship, the principles of Leave No Trace, and their creativity to go out and use nature for inspiration while keeping themselves and nature safe.