School Demonstration

Painting demonstration by Karen Lynn Ingalls, at St. Apollinaris School. Here - painting upside down.

In December, I gave a demonstration and talked to the students at St. Apollinaris School in Napa. Sandra Cassayre Moore, their art teacher, who invited me, is also a fellow Napa Valley Open Studios artist.

The students had lots of great questions!

The students had lots of great questions! And we packed a lot into our time. You can see more about it, including photos Sandra just sent me of student's paintings, on my art workshops website blog, here, at NapaValleyArtWorkshops.com.

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!