Kathryn Stats: Seaside

Who among you hasn't wanted to paint the beauty of the Pacific Ocean rolling up to the shore of the beautiful California coastline, especially in the visually dramatic Laguna Beach area of Southern California.

Well if you haven't had that chance, or want to see how to do it in the loose, expressionist painting style of master artist Kathryn Stats, this video is your chance to see how she captures the depth, color and true beauty of the rolling water, the striking white of the surf breaking on the beach and the beauty of both the near and far landscape that frames this wonderful, coastal scene.

Join Kathryn Stats as she expertly captures the scene in the alla prima method, using a previously painted study and a computer monitor for references, capturing the reflected light, the rhythm of the water and the wave patterns as they roll inland, and treating the breaking foam as a solid object, to be expertly carved and shaped at the end to give form to the froth, while using both palette knife and, mostly, bristle brushes.

She clearly describes her palette of colors, including a few that one would not normally associate with water, but which are most effective in producing the realistic color of the water on the Southern California coast

Kathryn also discusses and demonstrates the importance of aerial perspective in creating the three dimensional form, while maintaining the loose nature of the painting. Watch as she looks, then corrects, to maintain the proper relationships.

Her style allows the painting to "read" well almost from the beginning, even though much is yet to come. Through periods of silence, Kathryn allows the observer to become absorbed in her slow, yet deliberate, paint strokes that create the loose and difficult task of capturing the movement of the water and the froth, as the water reaches the shore line, as well as the nearby rock formations that frame the beach scene.

Her love of color, her unerring sense of proper light and her skillful brushwork makes this strong, deliberate painting feel effortless.