Karen Watson-Newlin

Landscapes, flora, abstracts-the cohesive thread throughout my acrylic paintings on canvas is a love of nature. My paintings frequently have an impressionist quality with organic shapes and splashes of color as I interpret my experiences and my imagination. I typically begin a new work with broad gestures of paint that are often applied with a palette knife. I love texture and the knife application adds to that 7element. Fine details in the composition are added with brushwork. Focus on the eye movement in the composition is important to me. As I build layer upon layer, I hope the viewers will feel compelled to discover a visual connection to the forms, colors and discovery of repetitive patterns.

Light is a key component in my work and I have been working with an under layer of metal leaf in many of my paintings for a few years. I am intrigued with the way the light is reflected throughout the day with the metallic layer. Using a skip trowel painting technique, the metal leaf comes through the additional paint layers in a random pattern.

My subject matter is often landscape inspired from my gardening, hiking and travel experiences. I take hundreds of photographs on my excursions for resources to create my own compositions in my home studio.

I participate in about 10-12 shows each year, ranging from art fairs, group shows and solo exhibitions. Since retiring from teaching art in 2011, painting is my fulltime occupation. I have work in corporate and private collections in the United States and abroad, including American Girl, Asperius Hospital, Epic Systems Corporation, Northwestern Mutual Insurance, Sauk Prairie Healthcare Clinic, Scooter Software Corporation, Singlewire Digital and others.