Knights Valley View

Knights Valley View II  •  © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls  •  11" x 14"  acrylics on canvas

This view looks across Knights Valley from Spence Lane (one of the most beautiful parts of a beautifully scenic valley). I can't tell you how many photographs I've taken along this road.... This is actually the second painting I've done of this view, though it looks quite different from the first – in different colors, and more layered.

Every painting takes its own time – some come more quickly, and others come as slowly as molasses in wintertime. This one came slowly, like a truculent adolescent with its own ideas. Sometimes painting does seem like child raising. After plenty of tugs-of-war and lots of patience, I think it's finally come of age, and I do like how it's turned out.

"My Calistoga" - completed at last!

My Calistoga  •  © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls  •  36" x 36" acrylic and collage on canvas

Sometimes it just takes awhile to figure out what a painting needs. I sit and listen, because at this point in the conversation between me and the painting, it needs to tell me what it really wants. And sometimes the painting is quiet. Sometimes they're quiet for months... or years. Sometimes I just say, "Okay - we're done!" and it becomes a moot point.

At last I figured out what My Calistoga needed – it needed gold. So here it is, photographed on the easel, with its added gold (and a little copper). And now it's ready to go out into the world.

And it did – you can see it at the Calistoga Visitor's Center (the Chamber of Commerce) in Calistoga for the next few weeks. Proceeds from its sale will benefit the Calistoga Art Center.

In case you haven't seen the story of its creation, it began as a demonstration piece at the Napa County Fair this summer. Here is its beginning, in my earlier blog posts about it:  Painting Demos at the Napa County Fair  and "My Calistoga" – continued progress.

The garden at French Laundry

Easels in the garden at French Laundry

Last week I had the privilege of teaching an afternoon art workshop in the garden of Thomas Keller's French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California. I'd never been to the garden before – I didn't know it was open to the public.

A view of the garden, looking to the west

It was a beautiful day. The garden sits across the road from the restaurant, with a lovely view toward the western hills.

Empty easels, after the workshop

As the sun leaned further to the west, and the light grew more golden, there seemed to be a bit of magic about this spot of earth. My students had been painting using the shapes and colors of the garden as inspiration, and I wished I had time to sit down and paint something myself.

Artichokes gone to seed, and a view of the greenhouse

I contented myself with taking photographs to paint from later. So it looks as though I'll be doing some garden paintings....

French Laundry in the background

As I was cleaning brushes and packing up after the workshop, cars began to arrive for the dinner hour... a new orange Eclipse convertible, a new white Eclipse convertible, a black limo, a second black limo, another new white convertible. Hmmm. Guess which car belongs to someone who isn't staying for dinner? And who hasn't waited a year for a reservation? Hint: it has easels loaded up in the back....

And, yes, that's a limo driver in the gray suit, under the tree....

"My Calistoga" - continued progress

My Calistoga • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here's My Calistoga in its "final" state (to date). As you could see in the previous post, I had a long way to go with My Calistoga after my demonstration times at the fair ended. Here's the process....

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here, I added a scumbled white frame around the sides of the canvas, between the collaged photographs. I've also developed some parts of the central composition a little further.

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

You may notice variances of light and warmth in the photographs – not to mention varying bits of easels and background around the edges. The photographs were all taken in changing light, at different times of the day, and in different parts of the art center as I worked on the painting. Here I've continued to develop the central composition, especially the palm trees, the area around them, and their reflections. I've worked a little on the "Calistoga" sign at the top, too.

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

At this stage, I've begun the process of tinting the collaged photographs. I want them to have a kind of old-timey, tinted photograph look (though they've actually been taken over the course of the last few years). I've developed the reflecting pool area a bit more, too.

My Calistoga in process • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The most obvious change is scumbling over the scumbled white, which covered an underpainting of reds. This time I've done it with a mid-value brown, mixed from every color in my palette.

Palm tree detail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I continued to add details to the palm trees, although they're subtle. Throughout the painting, I've used scumbling to give a sense of energy and vibrancy, and a kind of mistiness to the geyser. I love letting colors show from underneath.

Palm trees detail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Although there's some detail to the palm fronds, and the negative spaces between them, I haven't developed them overly much. In this painting, they're not as important as the geyser. The studies I did of fan palms in Palm Springs came in handily as I worked on these....

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I continued to work on the little collaged photographs, too. Here are a few of them.... Left to right, downtown facing the Palisades; a sunflower from the Farmer's Market (a prizewinning photo for me); and Tom Atkins' tractor, which pulled last year's Art Center float in the Fourth of July parade.

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here, Eden's bicycle, which she kindly let me photograph at a concert in Calistoga's Pioneer Park a couple of weeks ago....

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

A wonderful old olive tree across Tubbs Lane and over a bit from Chateau Montelena....

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Top to bottom, riders (on beautiful Palominos) in the Calistoga Cinco de Mayo parade a few years ago; the Faunce's barn on Foothill Boulevard; and Calistoga City Hall.

Collaged photograph details • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Top to bottom – mustard between the rows of vines; the Calistoga Mineral Water truck sculpture; and Mt. St. Helena rising above mustard and vines (the view next to Faunce's barn).

I'm teaching these collage painting techniques this Saturday at the Calistoga Art Center, too. I'm looking forward to it! You can click here for the workshop information:

http://www.napavalleyartworkshops.com/painting-collages1.html

I intended the painting to be kind of iconic of Calistoga (represented by the geyser), surrounded with the small images of so many things and places I love around town. Some stand in symbolically for other places, because I just couldn't fit everything in. I still have a little bit yet to do on the painting, but it's mostly finished.

California afternoon

California Afternoon (working title) • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here's a small painting I did a little while back... I love the early California kind of feeling the colors have. This spot is in Knights Valley, near Calistoga, at the northern end of the Napa Valley.

In spite of the half dozen or so paintings still partially completed – ones I was racing to work on before Open Studios – this painting and another small one I did at the same time keep calling to me. I'd like to see both of them on large canvases....

Just-Spring

Just-Spring • 10"x10" • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

This little (10" x 10") landscape is a little more Fauve than much of my work. But the sense and idea of early spring demanded more color everywhere. I like the blue and purple trees.

The title comes from the beginning of an e.e. cummings poem, In Just-:

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious ...

I added more color popping out, in the tree blossoms, in the grasses, in the shadows – but this feels to me very like that mud-lusciously verdant time of year. Thank you, mr. cummings.

Long Shadows, Late Afternoon

Long Shadows, Late Afternoon • 11"x14" • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here is one of the smaller paintings I've been working on for this weekend's Napa Valley Open Studios. This scene is near the northern California ranch of friends, a place with beautiful rolling hills, meadows, and woodlands of oak and madrone. I've painted other scenes nearby (including one very near to this) before, but a good bit larger. I keep coming back to the photographs I've taken there – it's an inspiring place.

A small painting of vineyards

Winter Twilight in the Vines • 14" x 11" • © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

You can see this scene in the Valley of the Moon, as you drive down Highway 12 from Santa Rosa to Sonoma, not too far past Glen Ellen. I photographed it last year, after I had stopped off at Arrowood Winery, where I had had a show. I've changed things a bit (I have an artistic license, and I use it), taking out winery buildings and a road. It was mustard season, and just past sunset, so the sky had that lovely pale yellow glow....

Painting Sheep, #2

Untitled Sheep (#2), 12"x12", acrylics on canvas © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here is the second painting in the series I'm working on of sheep.

Going through all my photographs of this flock, I found photos I took of shearing. The wool from their shearing now insulates my studio walls. So it is with gratitude and appreciation for what they have done for me, and the attachments I have to, and memories I have of, these sheep, that I work on these pieces – in addition to all the usual considerations of form, composition, color....

Painting Sheep, #1

Untitled Sheep, 12"x12", acrylics on canvas © 2010 Karen Lynn Ingalls

This is the first in a series I'm beginning of sheep. These particular sheep were my next-door neighbors at the small ranch where I used to live. My cottage was built into part of a barn, next to their corral. My studio's back door opened into the rest of the barn, where the lambing pens stood. Not long after I moved there, lambing began, and the new mothers and their lambs were moved into the pens on the other side of my wall. Perhaps because of this, I feel a particular affection for these sheep. I have been longing to paint them since I took these photographs several years ago. Finally, it's time!