Kathryn Stats: Landscape Bundle

Painting the Effects of Light

They'll Be Speechless When They See What You Can Do With The Light In Your Paintings…” 

Think about this for a second:

What is the ONE thing you can do right now that will dramatically improve the quality of your paintings?

OR

What can you do right now to create a more captivating experience for your viewers?

The answer is surprisingly simple:

Learn how to paint the light.

Some say that light is the soul of your painting. After all, it’s the light that gives your work a sense of mood and depth — leading to and highlighting those critical points of interest that define your work.

It’s also how you draw your viewer in and guide their eyes across the canvas…

Whether you’re an experienced pro or a complete beginner, if you learn how to harness the power of light in your landscape paintings, you can take viewers to places they’ve never been before.

Imagine what a difference it will make when you can paint:

• Reflections on the surface of water and rocks… 
• The beautiful hazy effect of light hitting layers of dust in the atmosphere… 
• Warm and cool shadows, silhouettes, and the value shifts that give your work depth of emotion…

These are the skills you need if you want to take your work to the next level, and here’s the surprising truth:

You don’t need to spend years of frustrating trial and error to learn how to paint light.

“All You Need Is The Right Teacher…”

That’s where Kathryn Stats comes in.

As it does for many people, painting started out as a hobby for Kathryn, but it quickly turned into a passion. She started with rural landscapes, and over time she discovered the magic of Edgar Payne, Scott Christensen, and Russian masters like Vasily Polenov… and that’s when her paintings transformed.

Fast-forward to today, and Kathryn Stats’ award-winning work has been featured in more than a dozen publications, including American Art Collector, Southwest Art, and PleinAir magazine.

Her paintings have been shown in galleries all over the country (and even as far abroad as Beijing!), and she’s currently represented by galleries in Utah, Arizona, and Idaho.

Kathryn has also taught classes and workshops off and on throughout her career, and she has a reputation in the art community for being an absolute delight to study with.

After spending some one-on-one time in the studio with her, we have to agree.

Why?

Well, for starters, she’s just plain FUN.

Not only is Kathryn quick-witted and engaging, she approaches the process of landscape painting from a very practical and accessible perspective.

In the words of the Arizona Republic, she is “direct, honest, and sensuous … a genuine painter.”

No doubt about it, these are the qualities you’re looking for in an instructor, but here’s the best part of learning how to paint with Kathryn Stats:

She’s A True Master When It Comes To Working With Light

Kathryn takes you on a step-by-step tutorial in which you’ll be painting a breathtaking scene at the former entrance to Glacier National Park.

This has everything you’re looking for in a powerful landscape scene: a gently flowing stream, monumental rocks rising up out of the water, jagged trees along the shoreline, and much more.

You’ll also be learning to work with transitions, contrasts, and a wide variety of light and shadow elements as well.

This is an in-depth landscape painting tutorial from A to Z, where you’ll learn everything from the very first steps of establishing proportions to adding the final details to your composition.

You’ll get to follow each decision Kathryn makes and her every brushstroke as you discover key techniques to working with light that will dramatically improve the quality of your work.

 Inside you’ll learn: 

• The secret to using light to keep things vibrant and captivating for the viewer 
• Kathryn’s palette and how she chooses each individual color 
• How to set your angles, get your proportions right, and establish perspective 
• Kathryn’s Four Stages of Painting the Landscape and the secret to “hanging the jewelry” at the end 
• How to work with light in backgrounds and foregrounds 
• When you should ignore conventional painting rules if you want to take your work to the next level 
• How to find the center of interest and lead your viewer there 
• The number one mistake painters make when trying to paint the light 
• When to use vertical vs. horizontal strokes 
• How to make the learning process work for you 
• How various elements in the atmosphere affect the temperature of your colors 
• How your studio lighting will affect the paint on your canvas 
• A fascinating way to easily tell when your values are off 
• The subtle brush movements you should use for creating texture 
• The colors Kathryn uses to paint the sky and how she mixes them to get the right temperature for each shade 
• How to “roll” your edges correctly 
• How to use the knife tool to create harder edges around rocks and trees 
• How to paint where water meets the rocks 
• How to paint shorelines and work with reflections and shades on the water surface 
• How to get a “hazy” effect in the sky 
• Painting highlights on the rocks and where the trees meet the shoreline 
• Why she sometimes likes to “chase the shadows” 
• The number one thing you can do to make your painting more provocative for the viewer 
• How to paint the value changes in reflections on a slow-moving stream 
• How to get unique, irregular edges in the trees 
• How to get a silhouette effect and establish contrasts 
• How to add the finishing touches with a flat brush 

…and much, much more.

Lazy Summer Day

This video by Kathryn Stats is the last of 3 videos that we were privileged to film with Kathryn in our studio.

The first two videos demonstrated her ability to paint any subject by first showcasing a pacific ocean beach scene and then a western mountain scene, while this final video shows her ability to capture a quiet and peaceful pastoral scene in the same, spectacular manner..

It is, of course, up to Kathryn’s usual standards and is filled with comments about her painting decisions and choices as she proceeds from beginning to end. Join Kathryn as she expertly captures the scene in the alla prima method, using a previously painted study and a computer monitor for references, while using both palette knife and, mostly, bristle brushes.

If you’ve watched any of Kathryn’s previous DVDs, you know what to expect and she delivers in this one as well. If you haven’t seen Kathryn paint you’re in for a treat, as she deftly, but loosely, paints the important details that make the painting come to life. Her love of color, her unerring sense of proper light and her skillful brushwork make her strong, deliberate paintings feel effortless.

In her own words: "I think a good painting is like a good musical composition." Kathryn states, "It has harmony and rhythm, contrast and theme, sometimes even soloists. Those elements rarely just occur in a natural landscape. I find that I emphasize with detail and color, omit some things, mute others, even rearrange elements to create a composition that conveys my visual experience, my joy, to the viewer. It is this challenge that keeps me painting."