Sierra Breezes Oil Painting – California Sierra Landscape by Karen Winters KWinters
Sierra Breezes
11 x 14 oil on canvas
Sierra oil painting
SOLD
More Sierra Nevada paintings here
For the last few years, fall means visits to the Sierra and, at its feet, the Owens Valley. Not only do I love it for its serenity but also the exhilarating complementary color palette. This time of year everything is orange/gold and blue. Leaves tumble with every breeze that passes through. Sometimes a storm barrels through and turns a brilliantly colored tree into a sleeping skeleton in one night. My attempt in this painting was to capture a more gentle mood near Bishop – a lightly breezy day before the soon-to-arrive storms.
In a little less than 2 weeks, I’ll be taking some of my new work to the last Montrose Art Walk of the year. This will be my last outdoor show this season.
Sierra Oil Painting – Rush Creek – June Lake Loop – Karen Winters – KWinters
“Rush Creek Overlook”
12 x 9 inches
Sierra Oil Painting
More Sierra Nevada paintings here
The June Lake loop (off highway 395, in California) has several areas where you can pull off the road and look down onto meandering streams. This viewpoint of Rush Creek (between Silver Lake and Grant Lake) was on a bright overcast day, and the hazy whitened sky made the stream look more white then blue. I liked the striking contrast with the straw colored marsh-meadow and the deep blue shaded mountainside in the distance. I used a very limited palette for this study – mostly ultramarine blue, yellow ochre and cadmium yellow light. A few tiny bits of burnt sienna and cad red added warm notes.
I have it on good authority that all those little nooks and crannies along the creek are filled with hungry rainbow and brown trout. Is it true? Fisherfolk, do tell!
South Pasadena Arroyo Seco Eucalptus Oil Painting – Karen Winters – KWinters
“Arroyo Guardian”
9 x 12 inches
Pasadena Arroyo Seco oil painting
SOLD
This one is sold but you can see more Pasadena area paintings here
A stately old eucalyptus grows along Arroyo Drive in South Pasadena, standing guard at the edge of the Arroyo Seco.
October 2010 – exhibited in a California Art Club show at the South Pasadena Gallery, S. Pasadena, CA. The judge was the esteemed CAC Signature artist, Junn Roca.
Link to the So Pas Gallery
I have been painting like crazy here, and traveling to paint on location, but I always seem to run out of time to post what I’m doing. Some of the paintings are commissioned works which are surprise gifts for people, so I have to be a little careful about what I put where in this day of social networking and transparency.
We’ve made one recent trip to the eastern Sierra and hope to get a few more trips in soon. Southern California weather has been marked by the same June gloom/grayness that typified our summer. I’m looking forward to making a trip to Santa Barbara to see the Clyde Aspevig show before it closes in February 2011 – he’s among my favorite landscape artists – a list that is growing quite lengthy.
Huntington Gardens Tea Room and Rose Garden – San Marino
Huntington Gardens
Tea Room and Rose Garden
Oil Painting
11 x 14 inches – oil on canvas
This is a plein air painting that I did a few years ago, and somehow it escaped being photographed and posted to my blog. A recent conversation prompted me to revisit it and I discovered that it was missing from my site.
Not too long ago we renewed our Huntington membership and I’m looking forward to visiting again when the camellias are in bloom. On a trip a few weeks ago, they had a California landscape exhibit which I enjoyed, along with other permanent collection work in the Paul and Heather Sturt Haaga gallery. If you live in Southern California and you’re not a member of the Huntington, what are you waiting for?
Cloud study – California impressionist oil painting
Cloud study
6 x 8
oil on gessoed wood
We’ve had some unusual storm activity in the past week, including some huge thunderheads that appeared in the distance last night. As the sunset glow touched them, I tried to memorize the colors and immediately came indoors to get down a quick impression.
When I was last at the Irvine Museum, I saw a whole collection of cloud studies done by Frank Cuprien. I think they were about 8 x 10 inches, no bigger than that. Displayed on a wall together they made an interesting collection.
I enjoy studying how different early California impressionists painted certain natural features, like clouds, water reflections, particular species of trees and so forth. Some, like William Wendt prefer heavier paint and active brushwork. Others, like John Frost, had a lighter hand.
Cambria Pines Oil Painting – Santa Rosa Creek Trail, Central Coast, California
“Cambria Pines Sunset”
(on the Santa Rosa Creek Trail)
Oil Painting
16 x 12 inches
Oil on Canvas
Among the places we painted in Central Coast was the Santa Rosa Creek Trail, which goes inland from Cambria.
The trail is a part of the land cared for by the San Luis Obispo Land Conservancy, which hosted us on our paint out.
Santa Rosa Creek winds through beautiful hills and valleys until it finds its outlet.
Bishop Peak Oil Painting, San Luis Obispo, Central Coast California Art
“Farm at Bishop Peak”
San Luis Obispo, Central Coast
oil painting
14 x 18 inches
See more of my California Central Coast paintings here
When I was painting in San Luis Obispo County earlier this spring with the California Art Club, I was especially attracted to the numerous large peaks that rise from the city of San Luis Obispo out to the sea, the last of which is Morro Rock. Bishop Peak (sometimes called Bishop’s Peak) is one of the Nine Sisters. Technically they are “volcanic plugs,” and the volcanoes that rose above them are long gone. Bishop Peak is the tallest of the formations, and it was noted in the diary of John Muir who wrote:
“The trail brings the traveler suddenly in sight of
Bishop Peak … The town is fairly encircled with beautiful hills…
the one just named being most conspicuous.”
The soft afternoon light and atmospheric mist from the sea made this a picture of rural tranquility that held great appeal for me.
Pasadena Rose Bowl Painting – First Night Fireworks – Pasadena Pops
“First Night Fireworks
Pasadena Pops at the Rose Bowl”
16 x 12 oil on wood panel
See more Pasadena and Rose Bowl paintings here
This painting is the 2nd place winner of the 2010 Pasadena Artwalk Competition. The Artwalk will be held Saturday, October 9, from 10 – 5 pm on El Molino Street in Pasadena, between Colorado Blvd. and Green Street.
The theme of this year’s Artwalk competition was “Art and Culture in Pasadena.” Because the Pasadena Pops and Pasadena Symphony orchestras bring so much cultural richness to the city, I decided to paint the closing act of the first show of the 2010 season. This year, the Pops is at a new venue on the lawn next to the Rose Bowl and fireworks provided an exciting finish to the June concert. I have not painted fireworks before (and this was a studio painting, not from life) but it was a lot of fun to do. Who knows, there may be other explosions in my future. Look closely and you’ll see that of course, there are eucalyptus trees in it – silhouetted by the pyrotechnics.
In 2008, this painting of mine, “El Molino Afternoon,” took First Prize and went home with a nice family who lived on the street.
Avalon Harbor Catalina Island Oil Painting – Avalon Dreams
“Avalon Dreams”
Avalon Harbor Oil Painting
8 x 10 inches
This is the last of my 5 paintings that will be exhibited at Segil Fine Art Source Gallery in Monrovia – reception is Saturday, September 11 from 5 – 7 pm
This viewpoint of Avalon Harbor is from Mt. Ada, which receives the first light on the island in the morning, and the last rays of light at sunset. Mt. Ada was named for Ada Wrigley, wife of William Wrigley, who purchased 99% of the island of Catalina in the 1919.
This Saturday and Sunday from 10 – 4 I’ll be showing work at the Bowers Museum Invitational Show and Sale. The Bowers is on Main Street in Santa Ana, just off the 5 freeway. I hope you can come.
Catalina Island Oil Painting – Little Harbor, Peaceful Cove
SOLD
Little Harbor, Catalina Island,
Oil painting, 16 x 20
“Peaceful Cove”
See more Catalina Island paintings here
Eucalyptus, rolling hillsides, ocean waves – this painting incorporates some of my favorite subjects and themes, and was a real pleasure to paint.
