Thank you for visiting the website of Seattle watercolor artist Chris Oldham.
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A self-taught artist, Chris has loved to draw and paint for his entire life. He has also been intensely interested in trains since he was a boy. In 2009, following a career as an attorney in private practice, Chris combined his artistic passion with his love of railroading and began painting full time.
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Chris has railfanned across the US and Canada as well as abroad taking thousands of slides along the way. He has collected thousands more slides and photos and maintains an extensive collection of railroad books and magazines. These experiences and resources provide a wealth of information on which Chris can draw to accurately depict a particular scene.
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Chris is also a model railroader with a large layout in his basement based on the anthracite railroads of Pennsylvania.
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In his paintings, Chris seeks to evoke a particular nostalgia for the railroad environment and to capture the excitement a passing train creates. He enjoys placing trains in context and including the people and details that create the texture that make railroad scenes so interesting. Chris strives for accuracy while at the same time keeping his work within the realm of fine art. While his art focuses on railroad subjects, he also enjoys painting subjects that don't include trains.
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Chris' work has appeared in juried watercolor exhibitions around the country and also been published in Railfan & Railroad magazine, the Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette, the Keystone (the magazine of the PRRT&HS) and elsewhere.
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Chris is a founding member of the American Society of Railway Artists.
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His work hangs in private collections across the US.
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