Simple Pleasures II

Cherry Trio • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Last Thursday's Calistoga ArtWalk was a wonderful evening for me. Thank you to everyone who stopped by for my reception! If you're in Calistoga sometime between now and the end of August, and haven't seen it yet, I hope you'll stop by All Seasons Bistro and take a look at the drawings I'm showing there.

I added a couple more small pieces shortly before the opening – okay, I started to get a little more paint-y with the apple, but I still consider these essentially drawings with color washes (albeit multiple layers). They're on either side of the wine library doors, and easy to miss, so be sure to go all the way to the back of the restaurant to find them.

Blue Plate Apple • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

By the way, All Seasons is a marvelous restaurant, well known for both their food and their very large wine collection. Their current dessert menu includes two or three desserts with cherries, so my little cherry drawings turned out to be thematic without my knowing it.

This show, and the work I've been doing lately, has really taken me back to my drawing roots, which has been a joy. My big brushes and canvases are calling, so I'll be returning to my bright, warm palette of colors and California landscapes soon... but I don't intend to stay away from my pencils and sketchbooks for too long....

Simple Pleasures: Show at All Seasons, Calistoga

Two Peapods • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Since I've been in a drawing mode lately, it's appropriate that my next show, Simple Pleasures, be one of drawings and drawings with acrylic washes.

Peapods Snuggling • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

These are three new little (all 7" x 5") pieces that will be part of the show.

Pair of Cherries • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The reception is Thursday, June 2nd, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at All Seasons Bistro, 1400 Lincoln Avenue, in Calistoga, California. It's part of Calistoga's First Thursday ArtWalk, so you can also stroll over to several other spots and see the new shows in town. If you're in town, come join us!

Two paintings for the Yountville show

Knights Valley Oak • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

I decided to bring three of my small paintings on panels as part of the nine paintings I'll have at A Taste of Yountville. Two of them I'd been wanting to revisit – just a wee bit – so I sat down with them today.

Three Trees, Knights Valley • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The compositions remain the same – I've just made the colors, values, and layering just a bit more interesting. Both are scenes I found in Knights Valley, a lovely, pastoral valley just northwest of Calistoga and the northern end of Napa Valley. I'm finishing the framing now, to deliver tomorrow.

Napa Valley Open Studios artists in Yountville

Napa Valley Open Studios artists at A Taste of Yountville, detail of brochure

This weekend I'll be in Yountville, a major destination for food and wine lovers, for the 18th Annual A Taste of Yountville. Yountville is a very small town with more many-starred restaurants per capita (a lot!) than any place else in the world. I know people who make pilgrimages to Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery there....

For this year's festival, Yountville Arts invited Napa Valley Open Studios artists to join the fun. On Friday night, there will be a reception with wine and small bites ($20) from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Head over to the Yountville Community Center, in the Generations Room, to join us.

The show and sale will be open on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. My space will be facing the patio, on the end, right next to the booth of Nick Cann, a dear friend and wonderful artist (and, I just learned, style leader! You can ask him to explain).

And, by the way, the little image of a vineyard on the right of the brochure (above) is from my Knights Valley Autumn. I'm pleased it was chosen! (The image of the farm worker on the left is by one of my favorite painters, Beverly Wilson.)

The event is not too too far from the Westin Verasa Napa, where my new show just went up last week (and where you can currently see Knights Valley Autumn). I'll post photos later ... it will be up through the end of May.