DYSART - One brush stroke. An errant brown dreadlock poking out from a girl's head.

With a chunky, flat swish of the brush, painter Lee Gordon Seebach's portrait conveys an almost electric energy, capturing a complete personality.

His landscapes and still lifes have the same vitality. His passion for painting and generous use of color is reminiscent of impressionist masters, but Seebach's brush strokes are equally as important, and as revealing as a fingerprint about where his heart lies - part intuition, part technique.

Seebach, an award-winning "painterly painter" and master of "en plein air" painting, was born in Waterloo and grew up on a farm near Dysart. He has returned from California to his old stomping grounds, visting his 85-year-old mother, Velda. Earlier this summer, he attended his high school reunion at Dysart-Geneseo High School.

Most of the time he spends in his mom's basement, cataloging hundreds of canvases, but friend Robin Werner convinced him to exhibit his work at the new Dysart Public Library.

"We thought it would be wonderful for people to get a chance to see his work and visit with him because he's been gone for a long time," Werner says.

Seebach, 53, was flattered. "I thought it sounded like fun. I haven't had a show in Dysart since I was still a student in Chicago. I remember the first painting I sold was to a friend right here," he recalls.

For the artist, "taking some section of the world and making something beautiful on a canvas - that's an experience, a feeling that there are no words to describe."

An outdoorsy type who loves tennis and rifle and pistol marksmanship, Seebach particularly enjoys painting landscapes. Traveling the back roads of the American West, he carries survival gear along with painting equipment because weather is unpredictable in the middle of nowhere.

As a child, Seebach made money from raising animals and spent it on toys, games and paint. He hobby-painted with childhood pal Duane Monroe, and learned to draw from a kit ordered from a nationally televised TV show.

Although he played alto saxophone, piano and guitar and enjoyed sports, Seebach decided in eighth-grade to become a commercial illustrator. "I didn't know what that was, but it sure sounded good," he says, laughing.

At 17, Seebach found himself in Chicago, attending the American Academy of Art and studying commercial art.

"I was a scared Iowa farm boy, staying at the YMCA and walking eight blocks with my stuff each day for class. I was really green off the farm, but I loved it. The teachers all wore ties and smocks, which were signs of an artist to me," he recalls, laughing.

Whether he blushed at the sight of his first nude model, Seebach doesn't remember, but he became skilled at drawing sinewy muscles and capturing facial expressions.

Then he walked into a Richard Schmid show.

An artist, author and teacher, Schmid is considered a national treasure for his mastery of direct alla primia (one-session) painting. Seebach was smitten by the realism of Schmid's landscapes, nudes, still lifes and portraits, and his lavish use of color.

"Everywhere I looked was beauty. I was amazed and I remember thinking, 'This is what I can do on canvas.'"

Suddenly commercial art wasn't so appealing. Seebach loved the idea of painting canvases and selling his work, and switched his studies to life drawing, painting and fine art. He'd found himself and his passion.

Schmid, an American Academy of Art graduate, also became Seebach's friend and mentor. "When I met him he was just getting started, but he still had time for young painters. It's amazing to me how generous he is, and it amazes me sometimes that we've shown our work in the same galleries," Seebach marvels.

Seebach's own impressionist style reflects his love of spontaneity and freshness, a desire to make his work look effortless. "When I lay down a beautiful brush stroke, that makes a bold statement, it's a great feeling. There's a dynamic tension between painter and canvas and I want that spark of reality."

After graduating from the Academy, he enrolled at the Palette and Chisel Academy of Fine Arts for portraiture and figure painting. He began painting landscapes en plein air in 1974 in the Chicago forest preserves, along Lake Michigan, on city streets and in the suburban countryside.

He also worked briefly as an illustrator for the Brookfield Zoo before marriage, divorce and disappointment in selling his paintings sent him Southwest for new inspiration.

In Phoenix, he juggled jobs with painting. It wasn't long before he quit the daily grind and became a full-time painter, moving to Sedona and painting in Oak Creek Canyon, changing his palette and subject matter. His work began selling. After five years, Seebach was drawn to Taos, N.M., home to a vibrant arts community and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

He applied for and won the prestigious John F. and Anna Lee Stacey award, which allowed him to study with impressionist/expressionist Rod Goebel in Taos. Seebach began painting on larger canvases, using paint and color more freely than he had ever done.

Dozens of one-man shows and countless exhibitions followed as Seebach's success grew. He began selling his works in galleries from Los Angeles to New York. His art became a business - striving to remain commercially profitable - until the realization dawned that, as much as he liked to eat and have shelter over his head, Seebach was "selling my artist's soul."

He didn't want to paint "pretty pictures" to hang over someone's sofa, but rather wanted to savor the raw challenge and emotional connection of painting "in the moment."

Seebach left Taos in 1996, returning to Sedona briefly before traveling to southern California, where he teaches and has written a book. He still travels the coast, desert and mountains in an RV and a battered pick-up truck - his "traveling studio" - painting from real life.

The truck has built-in drying racks for canvases and his palette is always ready inside his traveling easel, a battered, paint-splattered, decades-old wooden box that also holds paint tubes.

"I like directness. If I see something, I stop, set up and start painting and I work until I'm finished. I try to do it quickly and let the paint flow. There's that feeling of excitement and intensity that's such a rush. Like anything, it doesn't last forever. I say what I have to say and move on, to ride the passion of the next canvas," the artist explains.

Seebach's work can be found in several books, including "Modern Oil Impressionists" by Ron Ranson; "Painting the Landscape" by Elizabeth Leonard; and "Learning from the Pros" by the Editors of American Artist magazine. He has been featured in Southwest Art and Art of the West, among other magazines, and his instructional article on color appeared in American Artist magazine.

His portrait of fellow artist Rod Goebel is included in the Catalog of American Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and he is author of "The Painting Manual," available at his Web site, www.leegordonseebach.com.

Seebach's paintings have shown in major fine art galleries and museums throughout the United States, and his work is included in public and private collections, including T. Boone Pickens, Donald Rumsfeld, Bob Vila, William Price and others.