Douglas Aagard is a Utah-based landscape painter renowned for his vibrant use of color, texture, and light. His artwork reflects the diverse beauty of Utah's landscapes, ranging from high mountain pines and aspens to sagebrush, cedars, and farmlands. Residing in a rural community in central Utah, Aagard enjoys spending time outdoors, engaging in activities like fishing, camping, and gardening. He is also actively involved in his community, volunteering at the Senior Citizen Center and working with the Boy Scouts. Since 2002, he has pursued painting as a full-time career. Aagard's formal education includes general education and drawing courses at Snow College and Salt Lake Community College. He also studied watercolor for a year under Utah artist Harold Peterson, which significantly influenced his artistic approach. However, much of his education has come from studying great works of art and collaborating with other artists. Originally working as a watercolor artist, Aagard transitioned to oil painting in 2000 after attending a show by Gary Ernest Smith. Inspired by the potential of oil paints, Aagard began painting with a knife, a technique that allowed him to explore endless possibilities and gave his work a sense of dimension and depth. He finds the tactile quality of painting with a knife to be as enjoyable as the composition itself. Aagard's paintings have earned numerous state and local awards and are displayed in galleries across Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. His works are part of various museum, public, private, and corporate collections, and he has held solo exhibitions in locations such as Park City, Alpine, Ogden, and Provo, Utah; Palm Desert, California; Ruidoso, New Mexico; and Scottsdale, Arizona. His work has been featured in *Southwest Art* magazine's "Best of the West" in 2005 and 2006, and in *Western Art Collector* magazine in 2007. Additionally, his art has appeared in a Houghton-Mifflin textbook alongside Robert Frost's poem "Pastures" and on the cover of a poetry book.