About Artist and Teacher Karen Lynn Ingalls

About Karen as an Artist

I create colorist landscape paintings of rural California, and live in Napa Valley, in the little town of Calistoga.

Karen Lynn Ingalls in her Backstreet Studio, 2023 • Photo by Cornelius Collins

​After losing my art studio in the 2017 Northern California wildfires, my primary studio now is at Backstreet Gallery and Studios, on Art Alley, in the SOFA Arts District in Santa Rosa, California. You are welcome to visit me there on the First Friday of every month from 5-8 PM, or by appointment.

Article in the Salinas Californian • by Dave Nordstrand • September 2, 2000

​Though I'd always been a drawer and painter of people, I began painting endangered landscapes — places threatened by development — as part of an artists' group organized by Bill Fenwick. We worked to help save a threatened wetlands area in Monterey County, where I lived at the time — and our project was successful.

Since then, I've continued to paint rural California. I've always been mesmerized by the land, its colors, and its spirit, and I love how art can bring our attention to the beauty in it that is so easily overlooked.

Karen Lynn Ingalls painting "Sunset Meadow"

I also draw, paint abstract and mixed media acrylic paintings, and create block prints, using methods that I enjoy sharing with others in my classes and workshops. And I still enjoy sketching and drawing people, too, whenever I'm able to squeeze in the time.

Two sketchbook drawings — Man with a Beard and Portrait of Renee • graphite • © Karen Lynn Ingalls

My artwork, including paintings, drawings, collages, and life-sized painted sculptures, have been exhibited, and can be found in collections, on both west and east coasts of the United States, and a few places in between and abroad.

Karen Lynn Ingalls, with four of her seven life-sized painted sculptures. You can currently see Downtown Charlie Brown outside the entrance to the main Sonoma County Library, in downtown Santa Rosa, California. Let Love Bloom, on the right, lives in Yountville, California.

My art and articles about it have appeared in local, regional, and national publications. I've also been interviewed for podcasts. radio. and television; and even had one of my paintings appear on a billboard.

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About Karen as a Teacher

I became credentialed as a teacher in California, in both Art and English, and began teaching high school English in Monterey County, where I also met wonderful communities of artists.

Karen Lynn Ingalls demonstrates painting upside down for the students of St. Apollinaris School in Napa, California • photo © Sandra Cassayre Moore

​Since then, I have taught art classes, lessons, and workshops, and given demonstrations to adults and children in Napa Valley, Sonoma County, and other parts of Northern California.

Karen Lynn Ingalls teaching an Abstract Landscape Painting workshop at the Calistoga Art Center, in its former Masonic Building location, 2010

I taught for Napa Valley College Community Education, and gave art classes and workshops for adults and mature teens through the Calistoga Art Center, as well as private, group, and corporate art workshops. Currently I'm teaching all my classes and workshops online, and I love that people are able to join us from all over the United States and beyond.

Karen Lynn Ingalls, in a photograph taken for the Calistoga Chamber of Commerce, and used by them and Arts Council Napa Valley to promote local art and artmaking to Napa Valley visitors.

My students frequently describe me as enthusiastic, inspiring, encouraging, and nonjudgmental.

My specialty is teaching both the inner game of art — how to tap into your creativity and tame your inner critic — and the skills, tools, and techniques that help my students make better paintings, and develop their own styles.

Painting demonstration for Artists' Round Table of Sonoma County, fall of 2013 — demonstrating the benefits of painting upside down

I believe that making art in the spirit of experimentation and discovery is good for both the soul and the art.

And I've developed a special, step-by-step Question-&-Answer process that helps my students discover just what it is that their paintings need next, especially when they feel stuck, so they can fix what isn't working, and create artwork that they love.

Karen's Teaching Philosophy
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The process of painting "Sunset Symphony" — an early stage • © Karen Lynn Ingalls

​Painting is, at its best, a dialogue between the painter and the canvas.

At the beginning, the painter has lots to say...

The process of painting "Sunset Symphony" — a later stage • © Karen Lynn Ingalls

​...but as the painting progresses, the painter needs to stop, step back, look, and listen, more and more, to learn what it is the painting wants.

It's not about where you start — it's about where you take it — and where it takes you.

The process of painting "Sunset Symphony" — at a later stage • © Karen Lynn Ingalls

​I teach my students how to look and listen more closely – and how to dive in to the heart of the creative process.

That means trusting the process, too. When you trust the process, no matter what, and you listen to the painting, magic happens.

"Sing" • mixed media painting in an early stage of the process • © Karen Lynn Ingalls

"Sing" • mixed media painting, final stage of the process • © Karen Lynn Ingalls

​It's also about knowing who you are as a painter, too — where you're coming from, what the work means to you, and how to approach it in the way that works best for you.

It's not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. It's definitely not about copying what someone else does — it's about bringing out the visual voice that is yours, that no one else in the world could express in the same way as you.

Erik creating an abstract landscape painting.

Jane creating a mixed media piece with acrylics and collage.

In my classes and workshops, we don't do critiques. 

I teach and demonstrate methods, techniques, and things to look for; we look at the examples of other painters; and we practice and try things out in a spirit of experimentation. 

Then we talk about what the work in front of us needs, just two of us at a time. You get the knowledge you need to make better paintings; I ask you questions that will help you discover how to best make that happen.

Karen at a young age, painting on the patio, with her father and brother practicing hammer skills in the background.

​Every four-year-old is an artist. All too often, somewhere in the process of growing up, people in our culture stop making art. Something happens — a chance remark? an adult's criticism? — and the child decides that she or he must not be an artist, after all.

Learning to create means dipping back into the joys of creation that every four-year-old knows. But creativity isn't only joy. Sometimes it asks of us perseverance and patience, close observation, and the willingness to suspend judgement.

Sketch after Norman Rockwell's "The Critic" • sketch © 2015 Karen Lynn Ingalls

That last bit — the willingness — no, the need — to suspend judgement — comes harder when we're grown. Our inner critical voice pops up and tells us that we must be nuts to be painting, that the artwork before us looks like hell, and what were we thinking, anyway?

Learning to suspend criticism and judgement can be tough. But it's absolutely essential in order for creativity to flourish.

That's an important part of how I teach, and why I teach the way I do.
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Karen Lynn Ingalls painting Knights Valley Autumn.