Trees on Oat Hill is a painting of the view from the front of my Franz Valley studio. I just this week completed it — a reworking of a piece I originally painted a few years ago. I always liked the composition (and, of course, I love the view), but the colors were a little subtler than those in most of my paintings. When I paint on location, I generally feel tied to a more literal vision of the landscape in front of me — and that was the case here. It's when I get in the studio that I can use my photographs, my memory, and my imagination, and see where the painting wants to take me. Now that it's completed, dry, and framed, it's on its way to Rutherford Ranch Winery's new art gallery space, where you might be able to find it a little later this week. Rutherford Ranch Winery is located at 1680 Silverado Trail South, in St. Helena, and is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily. Also going to Rutherford Ranch Winery's gallery are Autumn Celebration, Sunset on Oat Hill, and Across the Meadow II, where they'll join a number of my other paintings.
4 Comments
9/11/2014 12:38:16 pm
These paintings are marvelous even in little computer-screen thumbnails. How "translatable" is this style, Karen, if the painter were interested, into larger paintings? Small paintings, even world-class great small paintings, often seem to me to be decorative, diffident, lost. At what sizendo you think that a typical painting declares "Look at me! Attention must be paid!" I would guess that bright, colorist, semi-abstract paintings like yours draw attention to themselves at relatively small sizes. Unfortunately, my own interest in large paintings is at odds with my loose cash, but there is something marvelous about large paintings.
Reply
9/13/2014 04:34:20 am
Thank you so much! And what a great question.
Reply
9/13/2014 06:48:01 am
Indian or Mughal miniatures come to mind: when I see on a gallery wall or in a good art book some much-enlarged detail I often marvel at how well the small scale translates into larger images. Naturally, I am baffled by the question of how any artist can actually paint such small works with such clarity that even enlargements look fabulous. All this before modern optical devices.
Reply
2/1/2015 02:32:21 am
How did I miss this comment? I just discovered my notification, looking through old emails — my apologies for not replying sooner!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Karen Lynn IngallsI am an artist in Napa and Sonoma Counties, in California. I paint colorist landscapes of rural California, teach art classes and lessons, and live in Calistoga, California. I also teach private, group, and corporate art workshops in Napa Valley, Sonoma County, and other parts of Northern California. Archives
April 2014
Categories
All
|