Outdoors Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Artist Comments
Artist Catherine McCargar explores the tranquility of still waters and deep shadows in this peaceful coastal landscape. The sun's rays shine on the greenery w...

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A place with the name Green Valley lives up to its name in this painting. The impressionistic handling of the subject gives room for the imagination of the viewer to draw on personal memories of the joys and promises of spring. This piece is painted to the edges of the paper on heavyweight watercolor paper. It will need a frame for display.

About the Artist
Catherine McCargar created her first work of art at five years old, a snowman drawn on blue construction paper. A group of artists invited her to try plein air painting and she fell in love. In her eyes, the time spent composing and recording in the open air is invaluable to breathe life into a painting. Catherine currently lives in California and loves tending her garden and being creative in the kitchen when she;s not painting. Fun fact: she occasionally writes stories for her granddaughter with accompanying ink drawings; she recently wrote a series called Baby Owl Learns to Fly.

Green Valley Spring...

Artist Comments
"Vietnam is a country of contrasts - lowlands with lush green ricefields like this one as well as mountains around every corner," says artist James Nyika. "This picture was so compelling because of the huge color contrast of the bright luscious foreground and the greying distant mountains. I wanted to capture these contrasts that are pervasive throughout the country."

About the Artist
Artist James Nyika paints the glowing atmosphere of cities across the world. As a child growing up in Kenya, he found art materials at the student bookshop and also borrowed just about every art history volume from the British Council library in Nairobi. "I checked out the same books over and over just to stare at the art, to try and understand how it was created," says James. With family encouragement to study engineering, James moved to the U.S. and immersed himself in science studies at Boston University. Several years after embarking on a tech career, he set a goal to create at least one painting a week, never throwing away any works and learning as much as possible in his off hours. Today, James still balances his full-time career designing large software systems with his prolific output as a painter. "Painting is a great antidote to the regularity of a computing profession and I really value it for the uncertainty that it brings - something frowned upon when writing code."

Words that describe this painting: Vietnam, paddy, rice field...

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A tranquil scene from a stretch on the American River in Sacramento, California. Artist Patricia Prendergast painted this piece by enlarging a smaller plein a...

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Light seeps between voluminous flowing clouds. A cool wind blows ruffling leaves from tall trees while birds fly away to the distance. "I find that getting aw...

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Artist Joanie Ford started this piece with a carefully drawn and detailed image. "I had been to similar places in my life, and as I...

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Patricia set up her easel at one of her favorite spots along the American River and painted a small study of the early morning scene. Then she went back to he...

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"During an early fall morning on one of my daily strolls, I was coming round a bend and saw this sight - bright morning sunlight ...

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A panoramic autumn view of rolling hills and a sailboat on the bay in Northern California. The blue water provides a refreshing sight within the grassy straw-...

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When artist Patricia Prendergast paints at the river, she often quickly picks up her camera and snaps photographs of other details ...

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A quiet Northern California morning on a rural road. The marine layer has nearly burned off, intensifying the colors in the landscape and deepening the shado...

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A bright day in the high desert plains. Pastel yellow, pink and blue balanced with the earthy tones of the landscape. "Landscapes when viewed in the open plai...

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Patricia set up her easel on an early fall morning to catch the beauty of the fog rising off of the river. The sun was just beginnin...

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I painted this on a piece of blue-grey sanded pastel paper. I let much of the paper show through in the water and just 'scumbled' across it to create some lig...

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I painted this from a photo I took at Stafford Lake on a cloudy, rainy day. As I worked on it, it started to feel like a night scene to me and I thought it would be fun to add the moon and its reflection. I like how it provides a counter point in this monochromatic design.

About the Artist
Pastel artist Patricia Prendergast creates impressionist artworks that depict the rivers and landscapes near her home in Sacramento, California. With each nature vignette, she captures the sense of larger natural rhythms through quick mark-making, mauve undertones, and a tranquil and serene haziness. Her work recalls the paintings from the Hudson River School such as Thomas Cole and Asher Brown Durand. Before working on her pastels at home in her studio, she spends hours studying nature on walks along the river near her home. Since becoming an artist, she says “everything is more vivid - the beauty of light and shadow in the trees, the subtlety of the color of clouds, the sparkle and reflections in water.” Her work as been exhibited in solo shows around California. She is represented by UGallery.

Moon over...

Artist Comments
This is a painting done en plein air, and is my impression of shoreline grasses and distant hills, with the intrigue of a train coming through and just in vie...

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I enjoy making trips to Palm Springs to collect inspirational material for paintings. I am especially drawn to the bougainvillea blossoms that grow so well in...

Artist Comments
I began this painting on location in plein air, positioning my easel on a path along a hillside that overlooks the out-buildings of a working farm, The farm i...