Shown January 2024, at Upstairs Art Gallery, 306 Center Street, Healdsburg, CA 95448 open daily 11-6, (707) 431-4214 .
The Small Works Showcase presents Marsha Connell’s A Walk in the Woods, watercolor paintings that dance with rhythmic colorful strokes expressing shapes and forms found in nature, from trees on Sonoma County’s rolling hills to the riparian habitat of a Sierra Mountain stream. These plein air pieces (that fit in a daypack) are like postcards from her many walks and hikes.
The special series of 11 inch square watercolors is presented in natural wood deep frames, “floated” on a black ground that highlights the deckle and torn edges of the papers. Walk the stairs slowly and watch the exhibit unfold; then several larger watercolors continue the themes on the wall at the top.
For prices and availability, double click the art to open the gallery viewer. Then click on the ( i ) in the lower right corner to bring up art details.
To purchase by credit card, phone (707) 431-4214. Shipping is available.
Wildflower Walk (SOLD)Flyway 1Open ArmsCaples Creek Weavings, 2EdgyDark ShallowsPrevailing WindSwirl, 1Storm in the Park (SOLD)Caples Creek Weavings, 1Walking a Sierra Creek, 1Sierra Granite, 2Painting with the KidsRed Orange SwingersDancing in the WoodsWalking a Sierra Creek, 2WoodedGreen Still WatersRockfallWood Lake Conversation
It’s always a pleasure to host old and new friends at an open studio in my home gallery, with images from my collections and fresh from the easel . . . drawings, paintings in oil, watercolor, pastel, and prints. Fortune cookies and good conversation! I look forward to seeing you! Oct 7 & 8. 10am – 5pm, 2180 Beverly Way, Santa Rosa Personal attention for those who want time to ponder additions to their collection include private appointments, time payments, trying artworks in your environment, special commissions. Contact me : marsha@marshaconnell.com
A theme for musing: The past speaks to the present. . . All I ever needed to know I learned in figure drawing. . . (SEE BELOW THE IMAGE)
ALL I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN FIGURE DRAWING by Marsha Connell
Be courageous! Stay focused.
Be ready to respond to shifting forms and problems.
Follow the rhythm, warm-ups to extended poses, like scales before the symphony or stretches before the big game.
Try different processes, from outside in and inside out: gesture, contour, mass.
Go ahead and scribble, or crawl as slowly as an ant climbing a mountain.
Be curious! Be humble. Be inspired by other artists. Learn from them.
Integrate “rules” that help you. Try them on. Or save for a rainy day.
Discover how the figure forms the ground and ground forms the figure, feel the charge between positive and negative space.
Seek balance and teeter on the edge of imbalance, organic and geometric, light and shadow, composition and detail, lost and found edges.
Experiment. Change your perspective.
Explore realistic color and expressive color.
Be flexible and spontaneous. Be methodical.
Use a lot of materials. Share. Be generous and kind.
Clean up together. Listen. Rest.
Observe how the landscape of the body that is subject meets the landscape that is body meets the body that is artist meets the inner landscape.
Trust your own voice, your own journey. Let go of judgement and the critic and move on.
Open your mind and heart to expression, to not knowing, to grief and joy, to repairing pieces of a life interrupted.
It’s a practice, like music, yoga, tennis, prayer . . . that is strengthened by drawing in community, by parallel play, study and work.
Really, all I ever needed to know I learned in figure drawing!
“And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”
(with thanks to Lisa Beernsten’s recent comment after drawing from the model , silently next to each other, for two hours, “Parallel play is so satisfying!” and Robert Fulghum’s All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten)
Aztec Dahlia Gardens, 36 x 36″, oil on canvas, SOLD, giclées available
Art Collectors: you can now visit artists and buy art from the safety of your favorite armchair or get your mask and hand sanitizer to visit in person.
Please help test this virtual project by going to my online gallery https://sebartsvirtual.org/artists/connell/. 6 paintings at a time will be available directly from the SAVOS shop during September. Kindly share this news with friends who might enjoy the healing comfort of art, to visit online or to own, or who are simply curious. Let me know how this new site works for you.
My physical studio will not be open, but more images including oils, pastels, watercolors, drawings and giclée prints will be accessible via my website, Facebook, text, emails, phone, and Zoom. Please contact me any day this month (10 am – 5 pm) and I can help you navigate this virtual landscape. Links are at the bottom of the email.
Also my art is on the walls at Upstairs Art Gallery, Center Street next to Healdsburg Plaza, and Gallery at Corricks, 637 4th Street, Santa Rosa.
Limited outdoor appointments may be available to pick up art from my studio or to see a piece that calls to you in person. We will observe current Covid safety regulations as listed on the SAVOS website. Looking forward to in-person hugs in 2021!!
Each SAVOS artist’s page will show if their studio is open virtually or physically. There are about 137 of us! https://sebartsvirtual.org/
Check in on the website for virtual events, panel conversations, demos, videos. On Tuesday, Sept 15, at 1:00 pm, I will be on a virtual panel with other SAVOS painters to talk about our artistic processes, motivations etc. Please join us! You will need a zoom account. Join live
Wildflower Heaven, 2, oil on canvas, 30 x 30″, available on SAVOS website
My Studio 2180 Beverly Way, Santa Rosa by appointment. (Showing Anchor Bay Inlet, above, and many other paintings in oil, watercolor and pastel) marsha@marshaconnell.com 707·527·7754 main; 707·331·0105 cell Open to public during Art Trails Open Studios October 13, 14, 20, 21, 2018. Save the Date! Bring your friends!
Corrick’s (showing Pond in Bloom above), 637 4thStreet, Santa Rosa,
10 am to 5 pm Mon – Sat
Art Trails Gallery at Corrick’s, and My Daughter the Framer
Receptions every First Friday 5-7 pm
Upstairs Art Gallery (showing Mimi’s Garden 1 & 2), 306 Center Street, Healdsburg, 11 am to 6 pm daily 21st Anniversary Celebration June 23 Saturday 2-8 pm. Join us!
Empire College, 3035 Cleveland Ave, Santa Rosa 10 am to 6 pm Mon-Sat
On the walls outside the Law Library
These painting workshops will be held at stunning Sonoma County sites that are only accessible via the conservation groups that protect them from development, Pepperwood Preserve and Laufenburg Ranch. Painting in community, with guidance and support from an enthusiastic and practiced plein air painter, could be a great way to kick off your summer painting season or vacation time. You are welcome to join us for one or both sessions, whether you are an experienced painter or haven’t picked up a bush or pastel since childhood. Scientists, hikers, and students, painting and drawing deepen your powers of observation which translates to many disciplines.
Sunday, May 7, 2017, 9am – 3pm
Pepperwood Preserve
2130 Pepperwood Preserve Road
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
Meet at the Bechtel House
$45 per participant ($40 for members)
For ages 13 and up
Explore plein air painting with artist and Santa Rosa Junior College instructor Marsha Connell. Deepen your naturalist and artist observational skills. Express your responses to Pepperwood’s verdant and blossoming spring landscape. Open to beginning painters, who will learn basics of working in the field, and experienced painters, who may expand their repertoire and enjoy support for finding their own voice. Demonstrations will be given in oil and pastel, but students may use any drawing or painting media of their choice.
Marsha’s approach to landscape painting conveys the spirit of place and evokes the mood of the inner landscape. Marsha has also taught at Sonoma State University and at a variety of other venues in the US, Mexico and France.
A suggested materials list will be sent upon registration.
Saturday May 13, 2017, 9:30 AM – 2:30 PM
Class level: All levels
Class Size: 6-15 $60 per person, $45 per Sonoma Land Trust member
Learn how to convey the spirit of place and embody the rhythms and forms of the landscape in this plein air painting workshop at Sonoma Land Trusts’ legendary Laufenburg Ranch near Calistoga. Beginning and longtime artists alike can benefit from Marsha’s expertise and extensive history of teaching, which brings out the joy of the creative process.
Enjoy a day in the bucolic setting of Laufenburg Ranch in Knight’s Valley. Create a record of your experience, which might include the magnificent 1883 barn, native oaks, old orchards, creek and hillsides, even Mt St Helena, by painting in the field. Explore gesture, shape, composition, light and shadow. Beginning artists: learn the basics of using painting materials and composing images. Experienced painters: expand your repertoire of painting techniques and visual approaches, realist, tonalist, impressionist, expressionist. Demonstrations will be given in oil and pastel, but you may use any drawing or painting media of your choice.
Materials Required: You will be able to do this with simple minimal supplies, for example, just black and white or three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) of oil or acrylic, and one brush, or a basic small set of pastels, or any materials you may already have.
Our permanent collection highlights a diverse selection of local artists, including James Armstrong, Elaine Greenwood, Chris Henry, Cari Hernandez, Dusanka Kralj, Benjamin Owen, and Paula Strother.
We invite you to enjoy these fabulous artworks, and light hors d’oeuvres expertly paired with La Crema’s acclaimed wines, including selections only available at the Estate, in a panoramic vineyard setting.
Friday, October 21, 6-7:30 pm,Sebastopol Center for the Arts
A Cabin Above a Lake began as a demo for AWS (Art Workshop of Western Sonoma County), just last month, inspired by small plein air paintings from our recent East Coast annual summer sojourn. As Helen Frankenthaler once said, ” I had the landscape in my arms when I painted it. I had the landscape in my mind and shoulder and wrist.” After revisiting it in my studio, I entered the painting in this juried exhibit, and am pleased that juror Sukey Bryan selected it, (along with about 56 other works from a pool of almost 700 entries). Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 High Street. Exhibit dates: Oct 21 – Nov 27, 2016. I’d be pleased if you joined me at the Artists’ reception for YOUR LANDSCAPE.
Saturday, October 22, 6 pm – 8 pm, History Museum of Sonoma County
Reception for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Altars. This exhibition brings together altars created by community members, festive artwork and three-dimensional sculpture associated with the Day of the Dead celebration. I am honored that Peter Perez requested that my painting, Thinking About Bonnard, from my Murder of Crows series, be included in his altar against violence.
Exhibit runs October 18 – November 27.
The reception in the History Museum of Sonoma County is concurrent with a reception in the adjacent Art Museum of Sonoma County, for Faith Ringgold: An American Artist featuring storyquilts, works on paper, tankas, soft sculpture, and original illustrations.
It will be as easy as 1-2-3 to find my studio the next 2 weekends. It’s #123 on the Art Trails map. 10am-5pm. Come see what came out of my suitcase from my recent plein air painting journeys, West Coast to East, ocean to mountain, and back home in Sonoma county, and how it inspires studio work. Drawings, pastels, oils, watercolors. Small works to large. Hope to see you!
Here’s a great map of most of the artists in the Northeast Santa Rosa area participating in Art Trails. #123 is just about in the middle.
There are just a few spots left. Sign up by Thursday May 12 noon!
Landscape Painting: Observation and Expression. Sunday, May 15, 9am – 3pm
Only $45 per participant ($40 for members)!
Ages 13+
Explore plein air painting with me! Deepen your observational skills and express your responses to Pepperwood’s verdant and blossoming spring landscape. The continuing rains have gifted us with wildflower joy this year!
Beginning painters: learn basics of working in the field. Experienced painters: expand your repertoire with elements of realism, impressionism, expressionism, with support for finding your own voice. Demonstrations in oil but you may use any media.
Please join me and other Sonoma County Artists, most from our Northeast Santa Rosa Artists group at a reception for a spring exhibit at Empire College
(You can find my 8 paintings of waterways and hillsides next to the Law Library)
Thursday, May 12.
Enjoy Appetizers and Beverages 4 to 7 pm
Empire College
3035 Cleveland Avenue
Santa Rosa, CA 95403