A painter and author of twelve other books, Atwill has lived in Santa Fe for many years. He painted fifty-six paintings in 2018 in his studio at Cristobal Lane, and he writes about each painting in turn, what sort of mood he was in while working on it and from where the image came. He also diverts into lore and accounts of the curiosities of being a painter. Most of the paintings are landscapes of New Mexico, but he often looks at what is going on in his own garden, flowers, and vegetables in the courtyard between studio and house.