Cabo San Lucas Los Arcos – mini painting
Los Arcos – Lands End – Cabo San Lucas
5″ x 7″ miniature oil painting
SOLD (commission)
This painting has a romantic story to it. The young woman who commissioned it, who I’ll call Stacy, is going to be married very soon. As a wedding present to her fiance, Stacy is going to give him five original paintings of different places they have been and want to return to. She saw my large commissioned painting of Los Arcos online and asked if I could paint a small version of it for this multi-part gift. I love romantic notions, so of course I was happy to oblige. I can hardly wait to hear how her husband likes it.
If you have a special occasion coming up, or are thinking ahead about holiday gifts, this is a good time to put in your order for an original painting. I get busier as the holidays approach.
Now for the less than cheerful news …
For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you hear the names Angeles Crest, San Gabriel Mountains, La Canada Flintridge, Pasadena, Altadena, La Crescenta and other location names quite frequently. I live in La Canada, now the flashpoint of what has become the infamous “Station” Fire which is raging through the Angeles Crest forest in the northeast part of Los Angeles County. It is named the Station fire because it began near a forest ranger station up Angeles Crest Highway.
We are fine, since we live a mile or so from the forest/residential interface, but the mandatory evacuation area came within about 2000 feet of our home. Today, the skies are blue above La Canada, a far cry from four or five days ago. For us, at least, I think the worst has passed. But we have many friends and neighbors in the surrounding areas who are still in the path of the conflagration. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.
It is comforting to see the snorkel helicopters and other fire fighting aircraft in the skies above us, hauling water and fire suppression materials to hot spots.We are SO LUCKY that this happened in August, not during Santa Ana conditions. In a strange way, I am grateful that this happened at all. I heard an interview with a fire chief who said that if this happened during Santa Ana season literally hundreds and hundreds of homes would be lost (including ours, I’m sure) and there’s nothing they could do to stop it.
Counting my blessings in La Canada,
Karen
California Oak Plein Air Landscape – Descanso Gardens Oak Pathway
Descanso Oak Pathway
9 x 12
oil on hardboard panel
Oh, I am trying hard to catch up and post paintings that I’ve been working on. I know it’s been a little spotty lately but more are coming. I have been working on a lot of commissions and getting ready for some upcoming shows. Add that to travel all over California and a new passion for daily walking and I’ve been a very busy lady. Yesterday, in fact, I spent a lot of time at Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes. When the weather is hot, we flee to the coast for art and recreation.
This was painted a week ago at Descanso Gardens in the very late afternoon as the sun was setting and back-lighting the oak trees. Although the light and shadows changed by the minute, I blocked in the lights and shadows at one moment in time and then continued with it.
I’ll be at the Montrose art show again September 5 (exact spot to be determined) but I will post it here when I know. I’ll be bringing new work, including plein air work from my recent Central/Northern California trip.
Casa Romantica San Clemente Garden Plein air California Landscape painting
SOLD
Casa Romantica Garden oil painting
San Clemente
11 x 14
oil on linen panel
Although this painting is sold, I have others.
Click this link to write me. See more of my paintings on my website
I have been meaning to post this painting which I painted at Casa Romantica, a beautiful old Spanish building which is now used for weddings and meetings. This was painted on Thursday of the San Clemente paint out, in late June.
This particular part of the garden is called The Butterfly Garden. Host plants like buddleia, milkweed, cosmos and many others are planted to attract the insects. A trellis is placed on the wall to the right where the caterpillars attach themselves and create their chrysalises (chrysales?) If you look at these precious ornaments very closely you can see the monarch wings in various states of metamorphosis. Among the flowers, I have suggested a number of butterflies in the garden. Can you find them all?
In the distance is the San Clemente pier, a local landmark. By the time I finished this, in the afternoon, the June gloom morning fog had burned off.
Sierra Splendor – Mt Whitney, Lone Pine, California landscape oil painting – Eastern Sierra Nevadas
Sierra Splendor
a view toward Mt. Whitney Portal from Lone Pine
18 x 24 oil on canvas
SOLD
More Sierra Nevada paintings here
Some time this fall we’re going to return to the area again for another painting and research trip. A new collector has tipped me off to some beautiful painting spots in the area – and it’s a trip I’m eagerly anticipating.
La Canada Angeles Crest Landscape Oil Painting – Karen Winters
“Snow on the Crest”
16 x 20 oil on canvas
This is a view into the Crescenta Canada Valley from a high road in Flintridge, near the Sacred Heart Academy. The 210 freeway can be seen on the left as it passes the upper Arroyo Seco. The mountains are the San Gabriel range. Last winter, a snowstorm left a dusting of snow on the Angeles Crest Forest. It only lasted a few days but I had the opportunity to take some early morning pictures of this rare occurrence. By the next day, most of the snow had vanished.
Now that the temperatures have reached the high 90s locally, I thought it was a good time to think about something cool.
California Golden Hills – Oak Landscape Plein Air Oil Painting
California Golden Hills
11 x 14
Plein air oil painting
Interested in this painting? Please write
This painting is currently on exhibition in the San Clemente Art Association Gallery, in San Clemente, CA.
Much of the week in San Clemente we experienced “June gloom” – that cool gray marine layer that covers the seacoast until early afternoon. Although paintings in the gloom do have a certain mystery to them, I was looking for a more colorful subject, and so we traveled inland along the Ortega Highway to find this vista at Caspers Park. But really, it could be anywhere in the state – the golden hills studded with oaks is so typical of our scenery.
Just for fun, I included a photo of me, mid-painting, on location. You can see my preliminary sketch on the easel, above the canvas. If I have the time I always try to do a sketch because it helps me to organize my thoughts and not to “get lost” as I strive to capture the scene on canvas. Here are the steps I usually take:
1) select an appealing scene
2) do a value sketch
3) draw the “bones” of the scene on canvas
4) put in the darks
5) put in the lights
6) refinement
If the light is rapidly changing, though, all bets are off, and sometimes you just have to paint whatever is most ephemeral. In this case, I knew that the cloud shadows might go away, so I painted them first, saving the golden grasses for last.
More paintout paintings to come …
Above San Clemente Coastal Plein Air Seascape Skyline Painting
“Above San Clemente”
8 x 10 oil
The view from Salvador Drive, high above San Clemente, about 5:30 in the evening
This painting is on exhibit at the San Clemente Art Association Gallery, until July 31.
If you are not in the area but are interested in purchasing, please write me and I will contact the gallery.
This was one of the paintings I did for the plein air paintout – at the end of a very long day painting in other locations. It portrays the silvery bay in late afternoon light from the vantage point of Salvador Drive, up Presidio, east of the city. The sun was just out of the frame, and I was trying to keep it under the brim of my hat – not easy! My husband took this picture of the painting on the easel at the end, just as the sky was starting to turn warmish. I thought it looked kind of neat backlit by the sun.
More of my work from the paint out will be posted all this week, so please check back.
Yellow Ribbon -Plein Air Homecoming Oil Painting – San Clemente
“Until You Come Home”
9 x 12
oil on panel
This was the painting that I did for the QuickDraw phase of the San Clemente Art Association annual paintout. A quick draw is a timed competition – from the stamping of panels to the final horn, we had exactly 3 hours to get to a location, paint a painting, get back and frame the painting and turn it in. It may sound like a lot of time but when you take off travel time and setting up an easel and packing up, the time really flies.
The weather has been very gray in San Clemente (think: June gloom) and it hadn’t burned off by 12:30, the start time. With this in mind, I looked for something to paint the day before that would have a spot of color. When I saw this yellow ribbon hung on the balcony of an apartment building, I made it my choice. San Clemente borders Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base, so I’m guessing that someone who lives in that apartment has a loved one in the service, and the yellow ribbon represents waiting for their safe return from overseas. The apartment is on the corner of Santa Barbara and Del Mar, if anyone knows who lives there. The painting is currently hanging in the San Clemente Art Gallery in the Community Center. If no one takes it home before Friday, it will be in my booth for the Saturday-Sunday show.
I am continuing to paint in San Clemente and Orange and San Diego counties for the rest of the event. I’ve got three additional paintings finished, and more to come by the end of the week.
Windblown Cypress Tree – California beach seascape oil painting
“Windblown Cypress Tree”
(Southern California seacoast)
11 x 14 oil on canvas
SOLD
If you’re interested in this painting, please write.
From the moment I saw this California cypress tree I knew I had to do an oil painting of it. Most of my tree experience comes from the big four: eucalyptus, oaks, sycamores and palms. Cypresses only seem to grow natively near the ocean and they are almost always sculptural in form and are icons of California art. The iceplant growing at its roots, in the sandy dunes, provided an interesting textural contrast.
Westward Waves – Southern California Art – Marine Seascape Oil Painting by Karen Winters
“Westward Waves”
16 x 20 oil on canvas
Interested in this painting? Please write
This painting was done in anticipation of the San Clemente paintout and sale, which will start a week from Saturday and continue through the following Saturday and Sunday, June 27 and 28.
This will be my first year participating and I’m really looking forward to it. I have painted before in the San Diego County area, most recently for a week in Fallbrook, and I think the country is beautiful. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll be doing ocean scenes or some of the lovely inland areas, but I know it will be a great experience either way.
The small Laguna Tide Pool study sold last week at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens show, and this larger painting, based upon that study, was already under way.
