A Spring Walk – Karen Winters Daily Painting
A Spring Walk – 9 x 12 – watercolor sketch
This one is a little bit from real life, and a little bit from imagination. I embellished the wildflower strewn meadows just a tad beyond reality, but if you don’t tell, I won’t.
Ah, springtime. Our peach tree is in bloom, magnolias are covered with blossoms and the mustard is starting to blanket whole hillsides in a warm yellow glow. I’m looking forward to getting out and painting again soon, now that the rush to deliver paintings to shows is almost over. I have more deadlines ahead of me for other shows yet on the horizon, but there is a bit of a breather, at least.
And speaking of shows, the “Warm Welcome” watercolor of the Chevy Chase clubhouse garden and front door was purchased today, two days before the opening reception. I am very pleased and hope that the new owner enjoys it as much as I did painting it, although it will hang for the duration of the show. I hope this is a good omen for the rest of the show.
Someone asked me the other day if I felt stress painting to deadlines for shows and competitions. I thought for a moment and realized, yes, I feel stress, but it doesn’t feel like a negative pressure – just busy-ness. It causes me to focus and be deliberate about what I’m doing, but it’s not a bad feeling. Quite the contrary!
Did you know that there are actually two kinds of stress? One, the one we think of commonly, is actually distress. It makes us feel bad. The other kind of stress, associated with good things, is called “eustress.” Here’s a link, look it up! So when I’m painting to a deadline, I feel eustress and it actually energizes me. I think this is the kind of stress people refer to when they say “I do my best work under pressure.” Distress, on the other hand, tends to paralyze you and make you lose focus and confidence. That kind of stress makes you avoid the project instead of looking forward to the next one. So, as a long way of answering, I do feel stress, but it’s the kind that makes me want to jump out of bed in the morning and get to work, not to pull the covers over my head!
And since it’s past midnight right now, I think I’ll go pull the covers over my head and hopefully dream about walking down that spring path.
Chevy Chase Canyon View – Glendale – Calif – Karen Winters Daily Painting
“Canyon Dreams (view from Olympic Road)” – 12 x 16 oil on canvas
This is another in my series of paintings I’ll be taking to the Chevy Chase Country club for the Artists of the Canyon show beginning this Friday, March 14.
Until I started working on this project, there were areas within 6-7 miles of our house that I had never explored, and this is one of them. It’s a view from a trail/fire road that winds up a hillside off of Chevy Chase Drive. When the clouds clear and the sun comes out, it’s a wonderful sight. With the tile roofs, cypress trees and houses in pastel colors, I can imagine it’s somewhere in a Mediterranean setting. But it’s actually right here, just a short drive away.
Pasadena Arroyo Seco Paintings – new show for Art Night
Arroyo Pond – 11″ x 14″ oil on canvas – Click to enlarge
Under Autumn Skies – 11″ x 14″ oil on canvas – Click to enlarge
SOLD
New California Art Club Show
See more of my arroyo seco paintings here.
Yesterday I got official notification that these two paintings have been accepted into a special exhibition of the California Art Club featuring paintings of the Arroyo Seco area of Pasadena. These paintings are of the northernmost part of the Arroyo, near JPL and Devils Gate Dam, on the border of La Canada Flintridge, my home town.
The show will be hung in the Pasadena Public Library and will open Friday night, March 14 (this Friday) and continue through March 30.
Reception is from 6 to 10 pm and artists will be present to chat with. The show is part of Pasadena’s bi-annual ArtNight – a great event in which all of Pasadena’s many museums and concert venues are open, free, for the evening. Shuttle buses take art lovers around to all the locations so you don’t have to keep driving and parking. More information about ArtNight can be found here.
So, if you’re in LA or especially if you live near Pasadena, you should really get out and enjoy this special evening of art, music and more. And if you get by the Pasadena Library, stop by and say hi.
Earlier that same evening, I’ll be at the Chevy Chase Country Club for the opening of another show featuring paintings of the club, canyon and surrounds. More details about that (and pictures) in a day or two.
Now you know why I’ve been saying I’ve been crazy busy for the past month or so!
Eaton Canyon Stream – Karen Winters Daily Painting
Eaton Canyon Stream – 9 x 12 oil on canvas on board
Eaton Canyon, in Altadena (near Pasadena, California) is running with water this time of year. This painting is of the east side of the riverbed, looking southward.
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.
Beneath the Bridge – Pasadena – Arroyo Seco -Daily Painting
First Prize – “Beneath the Bridge” 5 x 7 inches oil on panel
SOLD to a collector from Pasadena
Yesterday I got the notification that this painting received First Prize in an annual Small Images show competition for the Verdugo Hills Art Association. The show is hanging until late March at the Pasadena Public Library in Pasadena California. It depicts one of the two bridges that span the Arroyo Seco.
Oak Byway – Pastel by Karen Winters
Oak Byway – 11.5″ x 9″ – pastel on paper
After working almost exclusively in oil for the past year (with a few sidetrips into watercolor,) I felt like taking out my pastels for a little experimentation. I’m going to be doing a larger pastel painting in the near future, so this is a bit of a warmup.
No matter what the medium, some things remain the same: color, shape, value, composition, edge definition, stroke, perspective and techniques like negative painting. It’s different holding a stick of pigment between one’s fingers rather than wielding a brush, but much of the experience is quite similar to oil painting. In this project I started with a coffee colored paper which you can see peeking through here and there. I selected the paper to provide a mid-tone starting point for the large tree mass.
Mountain Lake – Karen Winters Daily Painting
SOLD – “Spring Thaw at a Mountain Lake” 11 x 14 watercolor
Although it may seem that I’ve been missing in action, I’ve been busily working on many deadlines for different shows, and now some of that is behind me. Other deadlines loom, but they’re at a manageable distance. I took a little time tonight to work on this simple watercolor of a mountain scene, using a limited color palette of ultramarine blue, thalo blue, burnt sienna and sap green. I picked up an interesting tip from artist Al Setton, who I watched demonstrate a few nights ago. When he paints in watercolor or acrylic he keeps three rinse water containers. One for rinsing warm colors, one for cool and one clear water. When you’re painting in a hurry and don’t want to take the time to rinse twice (once in dirty water, once in clear) – if you consistently use the right rinse water before continuing with the same color, you won’t have much of a problem. It’s when you rinse in greenish water and then try to paint red that you can get in big trouble.
Hillside Dancers
“Hillside Dancers”
5 x 7 watercolor on paper
As spring approaches, the rain makes the colors all run together, wildly coursing down the hillside.
Thalo and gamboge, sap green and ochres … all rushing headlong in a vernal frenzy.
Eaton Canyon Trail – Pasadena – Karen Winters Plein Air Daily Painting
Eaton Canyon Trail
8 x 10 oil on canvasboard
A plein air adventure SOLD
Although I had a wonderful time enjoying the company of my art pal Wendee while painting out in nature, today, just about everything that could go wrong, did.
When we got to the location, I discovered that I had left my palette at home. I had brushes and paint but no palette. After rooting around in the trunk of the car I found an empty Fedex envelope that served the purpose.
When you absolutely, positively have to paint.
It was quite breezy out there. So breezy, in fact, that the panel kept flying off the easel and landing on the palette. Yuk. So I ended up holding the painting in one hand (like the palette I didn’t have) instead of on the easel. It worked out ok.
By the time I got this far, the light had changed too much to continue. So I took a picture and finished it at home, in studio. (As above.) Thus ends the tale of lemonade from lemons, and one woman’s determination to enjoy her paintout day, no matter what.
