Carpinteria Salt Marsh - California Impressionist Landscape Oil Painting by Karen Winters
Carpinteria Salt Marsh
14 x 18 oil on canvas
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Carpinteria (sometimes erroneously spelled Carpenteria) has long been one of our favorite places to travel, take photos, and now, to paint. This nature reserve protects sensitive species from destruction, and is the habitat of green herons and other indigenous wildlife. Just south of Santa Barbara, north of Ventura, it enjoys mild coastal weather year round and is a popular tourist destination. In the background are the Santa Ynez Mountains.
This month those of us who are daily painters are making a special effort to paint works that serve as a tribute to our beautiful earth, which deserves our protection and careful stewardship. I may be taking this with me to the Descanso show, opening August 23.
Karen, I love this one! It’s beautiful.
How lovely. I’ve been looking at all these oil paintings via bloglines, but liked this one so much I wanted to leave a comment.
Beautiful -
This is one of those scenes I might not have recognized the beauty of before seeing your painting. Wonderful composition!
This is beautiful Karen. I love the composition.. the way the salt marsh leads your eye into the painting. Beautiful colors!
Very nice, Karen. I’ve painted there, but nothing came out this nicely!!
The painting came up on my Google Alert… from Flicker… Do you post it in two places or ????
I love it. My sister will be staying at the beach in Carpinteria next week. It’s a place I’ve been to several times but never to the marsh. This is so different than an ocean scene. It’s terrific.
Thanks for all the comments. I’ll try to respond to some specifics in a batch
Mary - I quite agree that this area has an uncommon beauty. It was the sunset light reflected in the estuary that really attracted me. It’s not unlike a stream going through a meadow in that respect.
Nancy, I think that strong diagonals always attract me in a composition and this one had it built right in
Marian, I think it would have been a challenge to do this plein air because the light changes so quickly that time of day. This was a studio painting from my own reference.
Freebird, I hope that you will go out there and visit. They have a nice little self guided trail along the edge of the reserve that tells you a lot about the animals and plants. Yes, it’s an interesting in-between zone between land and sea. I was considering labeling it a seascape in my tags, but people would say “where are the waves?” So it’s sort of a landseascape.
http://www.karensblog.com Karen Winters
So nice, Karen! Beautifully done!