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Making Art with an attitude of experimentation and playfulness

4/8/2021

2 Comments

 
by Karen Lynn Ingalls
I hope this finds your week going well, and that this finds you creatively inspired and coming up with ways to bring much-needed beauty into the world. I just had my first vaccination today, and now, after a little nap, I feel ready to paint again!
When you make art or get into pretty much any kind of creative mode, it’s helpful to stay in a playful, experimental state of mind. If you can keep it exploratory, and think of it as a discovery process, you will help keep your inner critic at bay, and perhaps make some new discoveries that could open up wonderful new art-making possibilities.
Picture
Sunset in the Carneros • 11" x 14" • Acrylics on canvas • © Karen Lynn Ingalls
And when you keep it playful, you actually do learn more, because you’re open to it!
As you may have noticed, I’ve been painting using a bunch of different styles and methods lately. I get to use teaching as my excuse — because it’s so much more interesting and educational for folks in classes to see different approaches and find the ones they relate to the best, than to only see one (and in time-lapse demonstration videos, it's easy to see the whole process quickly). ​
Last night I finished an 11” x 14” primarily-palette-knife painting — not a method I generally use, unless it’s a demonstration painting. But it is so fun to explore! It's the one you see above — I’m calling it Sunset in the Carneros, at least for now. (No, it’s not fire.)
Picture
Carneros Dreams I • 8" x 10" • Acrylics on canvas • © Karen Lynn Ingalls
Last summer I painted two other paintings, in different styles with different approaches and different palettes, of the same scene, albeit taken a little further down the road, so the perspective and the composition’s a little bit different….
Each is definitely something completely different….
Picture
Carneros Dreams II • 8" x 10" • Acrylics on canvas • © Karen Lynn Ingalls
​Have you ever tried that? Taken one subject, and explored painting it in several different ways? One of my painting teachers in college, Maurice Lapp at Santa Rosa Junior College, had his students do that. Then, I did, I think, five different kinds of paintings of an apple. The last one was inspired by Wayne Thiebaud, and decades later I rediscovered it, and realized just how much it foretold much in the work I generally do now (just in a slightly different, but equally limited, palette).
If you haven’t tried something like this before, and want a little creative push, or an opportunity to play, you might give it a try. ​
Do you usually draw your composition in? You might try massing in the colors of the big shapes first, and refining them later. Do you usually use a particular kind of brush? You might try using one or two brushes that are very different, or try palette knives (you can get inexpensive sets of plastic ones in different shapes at art supply stores). ​
Or…? Is there anything you’ve seen or thought of lately, that you might enjoy discovering? So… what are you waiting for?  😊
2 Comments
Tamara
2/21/2023 04:14:59 pm

Hello. I think you've just demystified something for me!

I have an oil painting done by Mr. Lapp which was painted in the 1990s. It's a lovely painting of the front window of Tadich Grill in San Francisco. I recently came upon a comment elsewhere from someone claiming to have an original Tadich Grill painting done by Mr. Lapp. Learning here that he encouraged his students to paint the same subject multiple times tells me that he must have done the same thing himself! I wonder how many other Tadich Grill paintings are out there!?

Thank you for your post.

Reply
Karen Lynn Ingalls link
2/21/2023 07:30:35 pm

You're so welcome, Tamara! I'll bet you're absolutely right — I'm sure he had us do it because he knew from experience how effective it is for exploring a subject — really taking a deep dive into it. And how cool that you've come across another painting Maurice Lapp did of the same subject! I hope you get to see what it looks like — it would be fun to see what variations they would have, and different ways he might have been exploring the subject!

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    Karen Lynn Ingalls

    I am a working artist in Napa and Sonoma Counties, in northern California. I paint colorist landscapes of rural California, teach art classes, workshops, and private lessons, live in Calistoga, and have my art studio in Santa Rosa, California.

    ​I also teach private, group, and corporate art workshops online and in Napa Valley, Sonoma County, and other parts of Northern California. You can find more information about my art workshops at www.NapaValleyArtWorkshops.com, or contact me to find out more!

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Landscape paintings, landscape art of Northern California, Napa Valley artist Karen Lynn Ingalls
​See more of the artwork of Napa Valley artist and art teacher Karen Lynn Ingalls at KarenLynnIngalls.com
Karen Lynn Ingalls
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P.O. Box 1172
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