Artful Thinking
By
Karlene Kay Ryan
As a professional Interior Designer, I have been involved with creative pursuits for twenty-five years. My actual foray into painting began as a healing art in 1986 after a family tragedy. An angel mentor invited me to a watercolor class in the fall of that year, and I have been painting since that time. I wake up everyday to the discovery of learning and capturing life moments in an art form. I am intent on the truth of using artistic elements and various mediums: oil, watercolor, pastel, and mixed media to interpret an inner spirit about a still life or landscape or human figurative subject that is present for a painting. I learn through every painting, every teacher and every friend with whom I share a paint day.
I have been blessed with personal study with local artists: B.J. McCoon; Suzanne Sloan Lewis; Merry Scott; Millie Pepper; Peggy Jelmini and the Door Gallery Artists; Patti Handley; Vicki Mathiesen; Carlene Kostiw; and Gay McCline and the late Debbi Soligian. It has been important to me to seek workshops to enhance my skills, and I have studied with: Timothy Clark; Roberta Clark and Ken Auster. For two years I have had personal study with a Russian Artist: Alexander Zimm through the Bohemian Gallery in Carmel, California. In oil work I feel that he has been a mentor of a break through in the Alla Prima work whether with a still life study or Plein-Air landscape. The sensitivity of thick paint used in one session in a loose but selective manner to capture the light and spirit of the moment is a magical experience. It is poetry in a painterly manner placed on a canvas. Every stroke is a rhythm to complete a harmonious composition. The spiritual sensitivity that comes through my art experience is important to me.
I have chosen to study artists that used the Impressionist style of interpreting representational subjects as: Nicolai Fechin, Joaquin Sorolla, Bonnard, Cezanne, Monet and Sargeant.
Because I spend a great deal of time in the Carmel, CA area, I have admired ad reviewed the work of S. C Yuan and Armin Hansen. I also have current favorites in the National arena that I admire and follow their work: C. Mundy, D. McCaw, Camille Przewodek, O. Berberian, Ken Auster, Sherrie McGraw, Peggy Olson, Peggy Kroll-Roberts: Carla O’Conner, Carol Chapman and Cyndra and the colorists from the Plein-Aire Gallery in Carmel etc. What a gift to have these artists as mentors!!!!!! I visit and re-visit their work through galleries. books, and periodicals.