Cambria Colors – Moonstone Beach Cambria oil painting San Simeon by Karen Winters

Cambria Colors
SOLD
12 x 16 oil painting on canvas
Cambria, Moonstone Beach, Leffingwell Landing area

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This was painted during the San Luis Obispo Plein Air festival, 2012 where I was one of a select group of invited artists.
The colors of the beach and ocean really are amazing.

Paso Robles Pathway – Central Coast California impressionist ranch oil painting


Paso Robles Pathway
8 x 10 oil on plein air panel
Painted for the 2012 San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival
SOLD

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Not far from Paso Robles, in San Luis Obispo County, rural roads wind through some of the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen. This ranch was tucked into the hills and surrounded by big, beautiful oak trees. A few cattle were grazing in the distant pasture.
This painting bears the official stamp of the San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival, 2012, on the reverse side.

Six of my 2012 SLO paintings have already found new homes. If you’re interested in having one for your own, don’t wait. I’ve updated my website to include these new works, so you don’t have to wait for them to be posted here on my blog.

San Luis Obispo Flower Fields – California impressionist painting – Central Coast

San Luis Obispo Flower Fields
9 x 12
oil on linen plein air panel

SOLD

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This is one of the paintings that I did for the San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival, sponsored by the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art.

It was painted the first day of the paint out, bright and early Monday morning, along a rural road. A photographer for SLO City News saw me painting by the side of the road and spent some time taking pictures of the work in progress. It was a nice surprise to find out that it made the cover of the paper …

Sycamore Shimmer – California landscape tree oil painting by Karen Winters

Sycamore Shimmer
8 x 10 oil on linen plein air panel
SOLD

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See more of my sycamore paintings here
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This painting was painted for the 2012 San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival and hung in the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art.
The official festival stamp is on the back side. Sycamores are among our most beautiful California trees, and in the fall they are especially radiant as the colors change.

The active brushwork indicates the way the breeze stirs the leaves of the tree. The use of transparent color creates a luminosity that makes the leaves glow as though light was shining through them.

One Golden Moment San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival Invitational



One Golden Moment
12 x 16 oil on linen panel
Painted at the 2012 San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival
SOLD opening night

I returned a few days ago from a wonderful week long event at the San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival. Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting the paintings I did there, many of which have already gone to new homes. Others, however, are still available.

This beautiful eucalyptus tree in Los Osos begged to be painted. Silhouetted in the late afternoon light, a field of flowers lay at its feet. The flowers are a seed crop, and I think they may have been marigolds.

If you are in the Southern California area this weekend, please visit me at the Pasadena Artwalk on El Molino Street on Saturday. I will have a booth quite near the Pasadena Playhouse, with a wide assortment of my current paintings. The address is El Molino Street, between Colorado Blvd and Green Street in the Playhouse district. The show opens between 10 and 11 (I’ll probably be set up early) and goes until 5 pm. This is a great opportunity to pick up a Christmas present – hope to see you there.

See more of my California Central Coast paintings here

Before the Harvest – California Central Coast Oil painting

Before the Harvest
12 x 9″ oil on board
San Luis Obispo area
California Central Coast

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I’m getting warmed up for the San Luis Obispo Plein Air festival with this study of some of the agricultural areas, under splendid skies. I love the skies over the Central Coast.

San Simeon – Big Sur California Seascape oil painting by Karen Winters

“Cloudy Day at San Simeon” (Big Sur, California)
12 x 16 oil

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The southern part of Big Sur, California is at San Simeon, the site of Hearst’s Castle. The dramatic ocean cliffs frame the always changing sea. The day I painted this the sun was peeking through from time to time, but overall the scene was moody, with blowing fog and moving clouds. I actually like these sorts of days as well as the ones with bright sunshine.

Below, a photo of me working on it on location:

At the Hacienda – Mission San Antonio de Padua Plein air painting by Karen Winters

“Meanwhile, at the Hacienda”
9 x 12 oil on linen panel
plein air painting – painted at Mission San Antonio de Padua
California Central Coast area

During the California Art Club paint out at the mission, I came upon this small guest house which intrigued me as a painting subject. In the late afternoon light, I could imagine it as an old California adobe, cool inside in spite of the surrounding heat. Some early model chickens miraculously appeared where a late model car had been.

California Mission San Antonio de Padua, landscape oil painting by Karen Winters


Mission San Antonio Morning
(San Antonio de Padua, California Central Coast, northwest of Paso Robles)
9 x 12 inches
Oil on linen plein air panel

In early June 2012, I joined a group of other California Art Club artists to paint at Mission San Antonio de Padua, a California mission that is the most “untouched” of the chain. Although some outbuildings and residential quarters have been added, the setting is very much as it might have been hundreds of years ago. This side of the building, the facade where one enters the church, remains much as it was in the early years. By mid day this was all in shade, so morning is the time to catch it. We were up before dawn getting set up to capture the light. We were warned several times to watch out for rattlesnakes. It’s easy to become so focused on what you’re painting that you might not notice one that’s emerged from a hole while you are painting. I didn’t see one, thankfully, but I was certainly careful where I stepped.

The Yearling Sheep oil painting – San Luis Obispo

“The Yearling Sheep”
14 x 18 oil on canvas
SOLD

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This sweet young sheep was painted from a photo I took last year at the San Luis Obispo Plein air festival. I was near the grounds of the Cal Poly SLO Cheda ranch, and the animals moved close to the area where I was already painting Bishop Peak. The sheep, I read from their website, are managed by students in the Cal Poly animal husbandry program. Several students were out monitoring the flock. I found it interesting that small birds were perched on the backs of many of the sheep, presumably helping themselves to insects in the fleece. It looked like a mutually beneficial relationship. This particular young sheep (a ewe, I’m guessing) was quietly munching and looked up at me with curiosity.