Howard Post worked as a commercial artist until 1980, when he decided to paint what he knew best, Arizonas ranch traditions. Viewers of Howard Posts oils or pastels respond to a birds-eye view of cattle clustered in a corral, cowboys perched in fence rails, or a distant ranch house. This higher perspective endows people and animals in the painting with stronger shapes and patterns. Howard Post draws from a collection of several thousand slides, from imagination, and then starts a canvas without preliminary sketches. Up to six colors might be used, painted over a dark background. His work is defined by orderly, strong shadow patterns cast by the figures of cattle, cowboys, trees, or fences