California Country Road – Karen Winters
California Country Road 9.5″ x 7.5″ watercolor on paper
A spontaneous sketch of an out of the way byway in California’s beautiful hills. Around the bend may be a tired old barn or a vineyard. You just never know what to expect when you go for a drive.
Sailing Home – Karen Winters Daily Painting
“Sailing Home” – 16 x 20 – oil on canvas – SOLD
This is the next in my marine series – and I am discovering new things with each one that I do. This time my objective was to experiment with some atmospheric effects. Unlike the previous painting, the palette is considerably more limited, with values designed to create a more dramatic presence.
Now, I know that some people will object to the dark and turbulent clouds. But when you think about it, when do you appreciate the sun the most? On a mild blue-sky day – or when it finally breaks through after a storm? So there’s my Deep Thought of the day.
Anyway, tomorrow is the opening of Watercolor West’s annual show and reception, I’ve been looking forward to this occasion for a long time, seeing my painting hung and visiting with friends. I’m sure it will be wonderful and I hope the weather will cooperate. It’s at the Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, California if you’re in Southern California and are looking for an art filled way to spend the afternoon.
On other art fronts, our holiday Descanso show is being hung today. There was a lot of good work I saw this morning, and is a second good reason to visit Descanso other than the camellias now in bloom!
Radiant Sea – Karen Winters Impressionist painting
“Radiant Sea” – oil on canvas – 16 x 20 inches
SOLD
I think this is my one of my favorite paintings that I’ve done this year … and it’s headed for Descanso Gardens’ Christmas Show starting this Friday, December 7, along with Desert Sunrise and two other new paintings yet to be posted here. Because there are 15 artists in this show (everyone who’s shown in the previous year) I won’t be gallery sitting every day – only a day and a half. So, if you have a spare moment to stop by and say hi, drop me a note. I’ll know my schedule on Friday.
I don’t usually have time to do this, but I thought it would be fun to post some larger closeups of some of the areas in the painting. Click the thumbnails to enlarge.
The surf and sand reflect all the colors in the painting
The “silver lining” part was tricky. I guess this cloud has a golden lining.
Using fingers and rags to get this effect.
Desert Sunrise – Palm Springs – Karen Winters Daily Painting
“Desert Sunrise” oil on canvas 14 x 18
SOLD
But you can find more of my desert paintings and other landscapes at Karen Winters Gallery Site
This Friday, December 8, I will be exhibiting some paintings again at Descanso Gardens in La Canada, and this painting may be among them. (I’m still deciding which four I’ll bring for the group exhibition, and my final selection will probably be made that morning.) This painting was inspired by the warm beauty of the sunrise in Palm Springs.
On another topic, last Friday night we attended a lecture at the Norton Simon museum in Pasadena on the landscapes of Renoir. His painting continued to evolve through the years, and there were some startling examples of contemporaneous paintings executed in very different styles, depending upon the subject matter. This came as a surprise to me because I think we are used to seeing a great deal of consistency in the bodies of work of the masters. It’s refreshing to see how they experimented and explored new techniques with a variety of interesting results.
Oh Golden Hills – Karen Winters daily painting
Oh Golden Hills – 8 x 10 oil on canvas
SOLD
California’s central coast area is full of beautiful areas like this – golden rolling hills decorated with passages of live oak trees that characteristically seek the gullies and crevices where water is most plentiful. This vignette is from a roadside on the way to Lompoc, California, an area known for fertile flower fields and rich agriculture.
This painting will be dry in a few days, and ready for shipping!
The blue dome of the sky arched over this tranquil scene, and the late afternoon shadows were tinged with violet. I didn’t see any cattle resting in the shade of those oaks, but they were likely there.
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.
Climbing Rose Oil Painting
“Climbing Rose” 5 x 7 oil on canvas on board
This is the second in what will be an ongoing series of rose portraits – at least as long as they keep blooming, which will probably be a few more weeks from the looks of things at Huntington Gardens and Descanso Gardens. I think it’s the warm weather that is encouraging this last flush to be so abundant. This climber was twirling itself around a trellis without a care in the world.
Here we are eagerly anticipating the return of our daughter from business school in Chicago. We’re clearing away the residue of months of back to back art shows and getting seriously organized until the next wave begins. Any day now I’ll have to give some attention to my garden which has been sorely neglected. Ironic, that. I spend more time painting flowers than pruning my own. If only there were a way to add an extra 10-12 hours a day I’d be just fine.
Arroyo Seco Pasadena Painting – Beneath the Bridge – Karen Winters
“Beneath the Bridge” – 5 x 7 oil on panel – Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco – under the 134 freeway bridge
SOLD
Remember the story of the ducks in the arroyo that I told several months ago. This is where it happened – in a dammed up area under the bridge of the 134 freeway. This little pond is home to frogs, fish, ducks and many other kinds of waterfowl The painting represents how it looks at sunset.
I can hardly wait to get back there and do some plein air painting again. The cottonwoods must be yellow by now.
Today we had a great time at the Watercolor West meeting where we were treated to a slide presentation by the juror in which he explained what he chose for the show. We all dropped off our paintings yesterday and I had a chance to look at the work of the other painters. There’s some excellent work there!
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.
