Gaylen Thompson has been painting for much of his life, with subjects ranging from wildlife of all varieties to cozy lakeside cabins. For the last three years, his paintings have been featured at the annual Eagles Club auction fundraiser, where they have prompted some rather competitive bidding wars.

When local artist Gaylen Thompson was asked by his friend and Eagles Club member Todd Smith if he could paint an eagle as a donation for their yearly auction three years ago, he was more than happy to oblige.

“I’m a regular at the Legion, and the Eagles Club hosts their meetings there,” Thompson recalls. “I’ve been showing people my paintings there for a while, so when Todd asked if I’d do a painting for the club’s yearly auction, I said sure, why not?”

Now, Thompson’s paintings have become a staple of the Eagles Club auction fundraiser, and this year’s painting – another eagle, as per the club’s name and mascot – commemorates a special occasion: the Eagles Club’s 20th anniversary.

“I’ve been involved with the Eagles Club since it’s early days, but I wasn’t part of the original group that started it,” Eagles Club president Rick Scholtes comments. “I believe it was founded in 2005, and I joined the club and took over as president in 2006.”

The Eagles Club, which holds its meetings at the Blue Earth American Legion, is well known for its yearly fundraiser auctions, but also hosts other fundraising events throughout the year.

“The Eagles Club hosts three different fundraisers every year,” Scholtes says. “We host the auction every March, we host the annual Fly-In at the airport, which takes place on May 25 this year, and we also run the beer garden at Giant Days in July.”

For the upcoming anniversary fundraiser, which will be on March 15, there will be three different prize pools, rather than the standard two: a live auction, a silent auction, and a ticket raffle. Tickets are available for $5, and each ticket equals one entry into the raffle pool.

“All of the money we raise through these fundraisers goes right back to the community,” Scholtes explains. “We like to try and get a youth group to help with serving meals at this fundraiser, so all of the proceeds can go directly to their organization.”

Alongside Thompson’s eagle painting, several other prizes are featured in each of the three prize pools, with donations from several community members as well as local businesses. A recurring donation, a painted saw blade which is kept at the Legion with the names of past auction winners hanging below it, will also be available to bid on.

“We get a wide variety of donations for our auctions from the community, from food to collectible toys to gift cards and everything in between,” Scholtes recalls. “Gaylon’s paintings have gone over well since we added them to the auction, and they’ve prompted some rather intense bidding wars in the past.”

While this year’s fundraiser promises to be a spectacular event, featuring live music from local band Steele Prairie and several other surprises throughout the night, Scholtes emphasizes that the real goal of these events is to give back to the community.

“The motto of the Eagles Club is ‘people helping people’, and I think hosting fundraisers like this adds a lot of value to the community by supporting local artists,” Scholtes says. “We try to instill that it’s a good thing to give back to the community in everything we do – volunteering is the easiest thing for people to do, and it doesn’t cost you anything.”

While Thompson’s eagle paintings have become a staple at the Eagles Club auctions, he has been creating paintings for several years. His primary medium is acrylics, which have a much quicker drying time and allow for faster completion of paintings.

“I can knock out a finished painting in about two weeks, depending on the size of the canvas,” Thompson says. “However, I sometimes have to go over a certain area of my paintings five to six times to get the details right, so that can slow me down a bit.”

Thompson’s paintings have featured several subjects over the years, from various wildlife and waterfowl to lakeside cabins to footballs to people, though Thompson admits that people are by far the most difficult to paint.

“Animals can look like anything you want, really, so long as they resemble the animal in question,” Thompson admits. “The hard part about painting people is that they actually have to resemble their subjects.”

Thompson’s usual process for starting a painting involves finding inspiration, which can come from anywhere and everywhere. A recent painting of his, featuring an albino loon (Minnesota’s state bird), was inspired by a photograph taken in 2024 by a wildlife photographer who spotted the rare bird on a trip to Canada.

“I remember someone telling me about those photos, and I thought to myself, ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing as an albino loon, but I’m sure it exists,'” Thompson recalls. “So I went and looked up those photos later, and I knew right then and there that I wanted to make a painting of it.”

After deciding on a subject, Thompson sets to work sketching out a loose outline on his canvas. After he’s satisfied with the composition and posing, he begins adding the first layers of color, working from the background up into the foreground.

“I don’t do a whole lot of planning on most of my pieces – I prefer to just get in there and start painting,” Thompson says. “You start with the sky in the back, then fill the lines in layer by layer until you finish the piece. The nice thing about acrylics is that they dry fast, so if you’re waiting for one area to dry you can go and work on something else in the meantime, and you won’t ruin your work because they don’t smudge.”

Thompson loves showing his completed works off to the Blue Earth community, often bringing his finished paintings to Juba’s and the Legion to share with the world. Sometimes he finds a potential buyer for his art, but most of the time people just come to admire his work.

“A lot of people look at my art and say ‘oh, I could never make something like that’, but I think it’s rather easy,” Thompson says. “I ask them, ‘can you color in a coloring book?’ They say ‘yes’, and I tell them, ‘then you can paint’. It’s really not as hard as most people think.”

While Gaylon’s work spans a wide variety of subjects and landscapes, he admits to having a preferred background: a vibrant orange sunset, usually over the water.

“I’ve really come to love that bright orange,” Gaylon says. “It’s almost become a signature style of mine. I want every background I paint to be that color, but then my work all starts to look the same.”

Keen eyes will spot Gaylen’s signature hidden in the bottom left corner of each of his works, along with the year the painting was completed. Along with being a stamp of authenticity, it also serves to remind Gaylen of how far he’s come as an artist.

“I don’t really have a rhyme or reason as to why I include my middle initial in my signature – that’s just always kind of been how I sign my work,” Gaylen admits. “I joked to somebody once that I get paid to sign my name, and they asked me how that was. I told them that I was a painter, and my signature is always present on each piece I complete.”

When asked if he had any projects in the works or ideas for future paintings, Thompson shared that he had a few pieces in mind.

“I’m working on another painting of an eagle right now, on a slightly bigger canvas,” Thompson says. “It’s got its wings outstretched, and it’s carrying an American flag in its claws, and ther are fireworks in the background – it’s a very involved piece. I’m going to finish that one before I start on anything else, but I’ve wanted to paint some cardinals for a while now. They always look so pretty in the winter eating those red berries, and I think that would make a great painting.”

While Thompson has been providing paintings as donations for the Eagles Club auction for the last three years, he also takes occasional commissions and sells his paintings to interested buyers.

“I enjoy giving people a finished painting and watching their reaction, especially when they cry,” Thompson explains. “Anyone can smile when they recieve one of my paintings, that’s easy. Getting someone to cry – that’s special. It means you’ve really done a good job.”