That touch of enchantment is what makes a great painting a James Christensen. “As a fantasy artist,” he says, “I am fortunate to have such a broad range of icons to play with: Puffy Guys, mechanical things, beautiful women and floating fish. I can find a beautiful place in nature and paint it like a landscape painter but I get to keep going, to magic it up a bit.

“The Guardian in the Woods is a Mother Nature-type guy (I think the two may have been an item at one time). He is the strong, silent type, which is why you may not have heard of him. He watches over the woods and the all that lives there. Like Gandolf, we aren’t really sure if he’s mortal or not. He looks like a hermit and smells like one, too.

“The inclusion of the Guardian in this scene sends it into the realm of make believe. On a hike I found a white tree that had fallen down. Flowers that looked like bleached crepe paper were growing in the bushes around the trunk. ‘What a great painting this would make,’ I thought. I just had to figure out what to add and wait long enough for the right character to appear. Now he’s visible, but for just a moment, because with a quick tip of his hat he disappears again like Santa Claus.”