Archived Plein Talks Archives - Laguna Plein Air Painters Association

Plein Talk with Bill Davidson

January 2, 2020 by Toni Kellenberg

Bill Davidson of Monterey, California
LPAPA’s January 2020 featured Signature Artist Member of the Month.

Click these links for: LPAPA Plein Talk Q&As with Bill Davidson & Artwork Showcase, plus see more of Bill’s artwork at BillDavidson.biz.

Bill Davidson is an award winning artist and sought after instructor, offering workshops throughout the United States and Internationally. He is a Signature Member of the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association (LPAPA), Oil Painters of America, and American Impressionistic Society; he is also a member of the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters. Bill has participated in LPAPA’s Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational four of the last five years.

Click here to visit Bill’s website and learn more about the artist.

Click here for LPAPA’s Library of Archived Plein Talks

Plein Talk with Elena Roche

January 2, 2020 by Toni Kellenberg

Elena Roché of Topanga, California
LPAPA’s January 2020 Artist Member of the Month

Click for: LPAPA Plein Talk Q&As with Elena Roche & Artwork Showcase, plus see more of Elena’s artwork at ElenaRoche.com.

Born in Lithuania and raised in the Russian part of the Soviet Union, Elena M. Roché (pronounced “row-shay”) had an adverse childhood. No one could have predicted that Elena would become an artist, plein air painter, a mother of five home-schooled children, a bed and breakfast owner and least of all an American citizen.

Elena Roché spent her first few years in the U. S. developing her own painting style. Much like a bird that was suddenly released from its cage, was Elena’s creativity. She tried many art supplies, materials and mediums. Unlike back in Moscow, her local art store carried so many art products it made Elena’s head spin. She spent countless months in her new Southern California garden enthusiastically painting California’s garden flowers in watercolor en plein air. It is something she wished she could do more of back in Russia, but the climate didn’t permit it. She developed her own pastel portrait technique. She tried colored pencils, charcoal and graphite and produced portrait commissions and architectural portrait commissions in those mediums.

Elena’s goal is to share the beauty she sees around her with people and to help the world to be a better place.

Click here to visit Elena’s website to learn more about the artist.

Click here for LPAPA’s Library of Archived Plein Talks

Plein Talk with Aimee Erickson

December 1, 2019 by Toni Kellenberg

Aimee Erickson of Portland, Oregon
LPAPA’s December 2019 featured Signature Artist Member of the Month.

Click these links for: LPAPA Plein Talk Q&As with Aimee Erickson & Artwork Showcase, plus see more of Aimee’s artwork at AimeeErickson.com.

Aimee Erickson is a representational oil painter. Born in Paris (1967) and raised in Sunnyvale, California, she started oil painting at the age of eight. After earning a BFA in Visual Communication Design/Illustration, she developed a warm, inviting pictorial voice grounded in traditional realism, informed by the principles of design, and inspired by nature and human experience. She has also studied with a number of prominent painters. Her approach to painting tends to be very direct and experimental, without a set routine, and leans toward the abstract; she uses brushes mostly, palette knives frequently, and sometimes a bigger scraper or straightedge.

Aimee teaches painting, drawing, and color theory at venues nationwide and overseas. She has a particular interest in what enables or inhibits artistic progress. How do we learn to see what we cannot yet see? How does expectation influence our ability to perceive?

One of the winningest painters in the plein air world, Aimee has won Best of Show at the Laguna Invitational, Plein Air Easton, Olmsted, Carmel, Sonoma, and Pacific Northwest Plein Air. She was a finalist at the Portrait Society of America, is a signature member with multiple awards from Oil Painters of America, and won Best of Show at an American Women Artists national show. In 1997 she painted the official gubernatorial portrait of Oregon Governor Barbara Roberts. She has recently travelled to China and Russia to paint and is an inaugural member of En Train Air. Aimee lives in Portland, Oregon, and carries a sketchbook.

Click here to visit Aimee’s website and learn more about the artist.

Click here for LPAPA’s Library of Archived Plein Talks

Plein Talk with Dan Mondloch

December 1, 2019 by Toni Kellenberg

Dan Mondloch of Cold Spring, Minnesota
LPAPA’s December 2019 Artist Member of the Month

Click the links for: LPAPA Plein Talk Q&As with Dan Mondloch & Artwork Showcase, plus see more of Dan’s artwork at DanMondloch.com.

Dan Mondloch is a third generation painter of landscapes in watercolor, following in the footsteps of his parents and great grandfather. In his hometown of St. Cloud, he graduated from SCSU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing in 2007.

He operates a studio in his home, where he balances his professional life between studio art, commission work, murals, and teaching. He became a rostered teaching artist for the Central MN Arts Board in 2012. He teaches studio and plein air workshops, K-12 Artist Residencies, and beginner classes at the Paramount Visual Arts Center in St. Cloud. In 2013 he was awarded a McKnight Emerging Artists Award from the Central MN Arts Board (CMAB), and a Career Development grant from them in 2012 & 2014.

Dan participated in the Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational in 2018 and 2019, and received the 2018 Architectural Award Winner “Bright Light, Cleo Street”, and the 2019 OutdoorPainter.com Award for “Sweet Spot” as well as the 2019 American Art Collector Award “Main Beach Magic”.

Click here to visit Dan’s website to learn more about the artist.

Click here for LPAPA’s Library of Archived Plein Talks

Plein Talk with Kathleen Hudson

November 1, 2019 by Toni Kellenberg

Kathleen B. Hudson of Lexington, Kentucky
LPAPA’s November 2019 featured Signature Artist Member of the Month.

Click these links for: LPAPA Plein Talk Q&As with Kathleen Hudson & Artwork Showcase, plus see more of Kathleen’s artwork at KathleenBHudson.com.

Kathleen B. Hudson lives and paints in Lexington, KY, where she has a studio at Artists’ Attic. Hudson is a Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists and the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association, and she is an Artist Member of the Copley Society of Art in Boston, MA. In 2017, Hudson received the Grand Prize in the 6th Annual PleinAir Salon for her painting Bright Morning, Timberline Falls, which was featured on the July 2017 cover of PleinAir Magazine. The same month Southwest Art named her an “Artist to Watch.”

Hudson moved from her native Kentucky to Boston in the fall of 2005 to begin an undergraduate degree at Harvard University. During her years in Boston, Hudson came to love the beautiful New England landscape as she painted, studied mountain travel narratives, and led backpacking trips for fellow students. After graduating, she was selected to join Boston’s Copley Society of Art, the oldest non-profit art association in America.

In 2013, Hudson returned to her hometown of Lexington and began to take part in regional plein air painting festivals. She now undertakes several national juried competitions each year, and when she’s not outside painting from life, you can find her in the studio creating larger scale landscapes that emphasize the dynamic interplay of light, shadow, and atmospherics.

Click here to visit Kathleen’s website and learn more about the artist.

Click here for LPAPA’s Library of Archived Plein Talks