Rialto Theater South Pasadena Plein Air Oil Painting
“The Rialto”
9 x 12
plein air oil painting on panel
SOLD
Last Sunday, a group of 30 or more plein air painters affiliated with the California Art Club gathered together in South Pasadena for a paint-out at the venerable Rialto Theater, which has fallen into disrepair in the past few years. The paintings which we created will be sold in the Rialto Visions show and a portion of the proceeds will go to restoring The Rialto to its former glory. Some of us also painted other scenes of South Pasadena, which I will be posting here and on My Gallery website.
I arrived at the event in the afternoon and caught the building in partial shade from across the street.
Although there were promos on the marquee for movies and theater rentals, I opted to leave it empty so that a potential purchaser could always imagine their favorite flick playing there, and relive some fond memories.
Pasadena Federal Court of Appeals Painting – Karen Winters
Pasadena Court of Appeals – former Vista Del Arroyo Hotel
11 x 14 acrylic
SOLD
This stately building has become the federal court of appeals in Pasadena, California, but it was formerly the Vista Del Arroyo Hotel. I’ve painted it once before in my sketchbook, but this was an opportunity to portray it from a different angle and at a different time of day. In the distance the San Gabriel Mountains catch the late afternoon light. The foreground sycamores are starting to turn color, an early sign of fall.
Warm Welcome – Glendale – Karen Winters Daily Painting
“Warm Welcome” Approx 13″ x 10″ watercolor
SOLD
This is another in the series of paintings I’m working on for the Artists of the Canyon show at the Chevy Chase Country Club, opening March 14. I don’t paint architecture too often, but I enjoy it when I do.
This time, my objective was to remember to put color in the shadowed areas and to walk the line between looseness and accuracy. This painting might be considered a “vignette” because not every inch of paper is painted. The area I left white is in fact a gray parking lot on a hot day. It is not attractive to look at; I like this better.
With some of these shows behind me, hopefully I’ll be able to get back in the daily painting groove pretty soon. These large pieces take a lot more time to paint than the little ones.
Tumbling Down – Karen Winters daily painting
“Tumbling Down” – 10 x 14 – mixed media on watercolor paper (wc and acrylic)
Last night, after I decided to stop working on an oil painting (for the moment), I took out a watercolor pad and thought I’d experiment with some of what I heard Jerry Stitt talking about – painting what things are “doing” rather than literally what they look like. This was the result.
I started with big bold washes with a wide hake (goat hair?) brush, and then started layering with other watercolor washes. I dropped thick paint into wet areas and let it run. I used the edge of a flat brush to sculpt some of the rocks. Dry brush was added here and there for foliage. Most of the white of the waterfall was the reserved white of the paper.
After the watercolor was dry, I went back in with acrylic (both diluted and full strength) to add more crevices to the rocks and to add to the spray effect over dark rocks. Knowing that I was going to include acrylic, I didn’t use any masking.
I only vaguely used a reference photo as a starting point and to understand the flow of the cascade. Most of the rocks were made up as the paint did its own thing and I needed to respond to it. That’s something else that I found fascinating from Stitt’s demo – he did his paintings completely out of his head based on his response to a very quick gestural drawing and what the paint was doing on the paper. Stitt has been painting for so many years that his knowledge of land forms is vast, so in a sense he’s relying on an internal reference library and a near photographic memory. But what he says is true. At a certain point in a particular painting you need to make the painting work and forget trying to match a scene “out there” in reality. I observed the same ability with watercolorist Barbara Nechis who invented landscapes as she painted … again building upon years of experience as a painter and observer of nature. This is yet another reason to keep a sketchbook and draw nature wherever you go. By this simple act you are committing nature to memory.
San Pasqual Stables – South Pasadena – Arroyo Seco
“San Pasqual Stables in the Morning” 9 x 12 – oil
SOLD
This morning I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the San Pasqual Stables in South Pasadena, California for a group paintout. The location was challenging because I don’t frequently do architectural subjects, and morning light is hard to catch because it changes so fast. So, I decided that I was mostly concerned about getting the “color notes” right for the barn, shadow, distant trees and foreground. If I happened to get those spots of color into good shapes, all the better, but I kept my expectations low just in case.
I liked how this came out and do think it represents the feeling of hazy light between 9:30 and 10 in the morning. After that time I worked on refinement of the image rather than trying to “chase the sun” and continue modifying the shadows, color etc. That means that the “bones” of this were laid down in 20 minutes, more or less, and then as I changed shapes and edges I mixed more of the same colors that I already had.
It would have been nice if there had been some people and horses standing around outside the stables, but mostly they were inside or moving through the scene quickly and I didn’t fancy trying to fake one, so I left it alone.
There were two somewhat exciting incidents while I was there 1) a golden eagle was spotted in the vicinity, slowly gliding over the area near a few crows and 2) a big male stallion got loose and came running right near where I was standing, at the side of a corral. Now I don’t know about horses, but I think they usually have people with them – they’re not like dogs that you can just let loose to find their way home. I saw this big guy running toward me and I just froze at my easel, not wanting him to see me as threatening in any way. In a few seconds he turned and went into a corral. A groom came running after him but was clearly keeping his distance so he didn’t spook him. The groom chained the horse in the corral and then he and a few other wranglers approached him gingerly and got a halter on him to lead him back to the barn. That stallion had a lot of attitude – I’m glad he didn’t decide that I was someone to have “issues” with.
Pasadena Colorado Street Bridge – 2007
Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge – 8 x 10 oil
SOLD
As the new year approaches, over a million people will make the pilgrimage to Pasadena, California for the Rose Parade. And perhaps one of our most elegant local landmarks is the Colorado Street Bridge, which I’ve painted several times this year and will no revisit in 2008. It spans the Arroyo Seco, along with the 134 freeway bridge, which can be seen in the background.
Now, onto my look back at some of my favorite art from the past year:
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July. “Sunset Trail” The Cobb Estate in Pasadena is a wild place in the foothills that is just minutes from the downtown. This painting gave me the opportunity to paint a sunset glow – a theme I’d continue throughout the rest of the year. |  |
August. This painting was done as an entry into a California Art Club juried competition – featuring scenes of Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley area. It’s hanging at Marston’s restaurant right now. I wasn’t doing a lot of architectural subjects at that time, so the challenge was a good one for me. |
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September. This painting, of Zuma Beach at Malibu, was painted for my first show at the Descanso Gardens Gallery. |
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October. I got the notification that this painting had been accepted into Watercolor West, a national transparent watercolor show. It’s radically different from other watercolors I’ve done but it was SO much fun to paint. This painting is currently at the Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California |
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November. With fall persimmons appearing in the market, I picked up a few and painted a classic realistic still life setup with a complimentary color scheme. This painting is currently at the San Gabriel Fine Arts Association Gallery at the Artist of the Year show.. |
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December. If I had to pick one favorite painting of the year, this might be it Another sunset seascape, but more chromatic than Winging Home. This painting is currently at the Descanso Gardens Art Gallery in La Canada Flintridge. |
Coming up soon … a look back at my 2007 art goals, and some new goals for 2008
Fall at Huntington Gardens -Karen Winters daily painting
Fall at the Huntington – 9 x 12 oil on canvas on hardboard
In Southern California sometimes our seasons get all mixed up. Summer flowers are still blooming while deciduous trees have already lost their leaves. This tree stands outside a gallery at Huntington Gardens, and is in the process of losing its finery. Evergreens will keep the gardens looking lush and beautiful year round – from the tall conifers and deodars to cypresses and olives, like the little olive tree that stands guard on the other side of the doorway.
I’m still not feeling well, but it hasn’t put a damper on my desire to make art. I just have to do it indoors rather than painting en plein air for now.
University of Redlands Original Plein Air Oil Painting of Larsen Hall by Karen Winters – November 2007 Centennial
“Larsen Hall” – 9 x 12 oil on canvas on board
University of Redlands original plein air oil painting
Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are thankful for the blessings of home, family and freedom from want. I am decidedly NOT thankful for the nasty cold I came down with during the day, which has absolutely knocked me for a loop today. I’m hoping that by tomorrow I’ll start to recover somewhat.
I have been working on a winter painting which may be our Christmas card this year, so in the meantime here’s a painting from October’s plein air paintout at University of Redlands which I had not posted earlier. It was done at about 9:30 am at Larsen Hall on Saturday, October 20, just a day before the winds and fires came to So. California.
This isn’t the front of Larsen Hall, which may be a more popular angle, but I chose this one around the side because it provided a good view of the dome as well as the beautiful violet mountains, deodar trees and the blooming sago palm – all images which are iconic of the campus.
Huntington Gardens San Marino – November Dawn – Karen Winters Daily Painting
November Dawn (Scott Gallery -Huntington Gardens) 12 x 16 oil on canvas
This studio painting depicting dawn in the Shakespeare Garden is based on plein sketches and photos I’ve taken at the Huntington. In fact, I’ve never been there at dawn, but I’ve taken some liberties with a noon photo (below) to imagine how it must look at the peak of fall bloom.
Changing the time of day and angle of the sun was a real exercise in thinking about color, shadows and so on because I had no reference to rely on. I remembered that white marble often glows pink in the morning, but there are touches of warm, too. To break up the wide expanse of the wall I invented shadows, but then I had to think about what color they would be. The same is true of the shadows of the side of the building – where would they cast shadows? The sky is different at dawn. Darker at the top than at the horizon (as usual) but it is warmer in the direction of the sun. So those colors needed to be softly blended to suggest the right atmosphere for that time of day.
I find this kind of exercise a lot of fun because it helps me to break out of painting that is just copying. This can be useful for plein air painting, too. For example, if you are a distance from your subject and you know there’s a shadow there but you can’t see it, you can use imagination and logic to decide what color to paint it.
University of Redlands Plein Air Painting – Admin Bldg and Rose Garden
Redlands Roses – 9 x 12 oil on canvas panel – Available
Here’s another painting from the Redlands paintout in Riverside, part of the centennial celebration, a view of the Admin building featuring the sculpture “American Deposition” and the Chancellor’s Rose Garden. This was painted on October 20, between 1 and 2 o clock when the sun was quite high in the sky.
