Victoria Ryan

"Collingwood Potting Shed" 12x12 Pastel

We spent this afternoon at a traditional summer garden party.  Lots of fresh, organic food and plenty of margaritas to enjoy.    It was relatively warm for the Humboldt County coast – holding steady in the 70’s with the sun shining.   Our friends, the Collingwoods have a magnificent property that I have been expoloring and recently did this piece from their garden.   I plan on continuing the series along with others I have in the works…..so many paintings, so little time.   A lovely day in paradise on the north coast of California.

The Artist with Sister Kitty and Brother Chris

June and half of July has come and gone.   A brief illness followed by a wonderful vacation to Southern California absorbed the better part of the past 6 weeks.   I celebrated my birthday on the 4th of July in southern California at the beach home of my dear sister Kitty and brother in law Jim.   I am one of eleven children and it seems that a lot of the creativity in the family was concentrated in the middle 3 kids, including my brother, Chris,  who works as a prop master and art director for commercials and has played guitar since he was a kid and my sister who has put her energies into becoming a great chef and master gardener.  We were all together for the holiday and it was a lot of fun.    So much creativity in one room infused with  even more wit and humor.   I bet there are a lot of reasons that the middle kids from a big family would become the creative ones….I’m just glad we did and that we enjoy each others company as much as we do.

Back to the studio and time to get ready for upcoming shows.   I have some vineyard paintings in the works and ideas overflowing so check back for new work.

Pink Rhododendran

Its North Coast Open Studio Tour time.   Artists from all over Humboldt County open their studios during this annual event held the first few weekends of June.    My studio will be open the first weekend, June 5 &6 from 11 am to 5pm.  If you are in the area and would like to see newly released original pastels, as well as oils, prints and  the ability to purchase work straight from the studio wall please come by.   Refreshments served.   For further information visit    North Coast Open Studios .

Hope to see you here!

Its festival season and this year I will be participating in three, starting with the Los Altos Rotary Fine Art Show this coming weekend, May 15&16.   I have been participating in this show for a decade and in addition to having met a lot of incredible people, I’ve placed my work in more private collections than I can count in Los Altos and the surrounding area.   Los Altos is very special to me and I’m looking forward to seeing all of my friends this weekend!    If you are in the area I encourage you to come by.   I’ll be in booth 310, not too far from the entrance to the show.    ”November Gold” is one of the new pastels I will be premiering at this event.   Hope to see  you there!

"Red Shutters" 19x25 Pastel

"Water Tower at Mid Day" 23x31" Pastel

The question of what a painter chooses as subject matter can sometimes be compared to an author.  The best writing tends to come from what you know.   I’ve been concentrating on landscapes for years more on than off and as my surroundings have changed so has my focus and direction.   I started painting in Southern California and my early work  dealt with that light and color sense.   I also lived in the suburbs so I found inspiration in suburban architecture.   Living in the Bay Area of California opened me up to the carved and othewise altered landscape of vineyards and farmland which for me was like stepping to an abundant waterfall of inspiration.   Living in Humboldt County for the past 8 years has  opened me up to a different sense of light, mood and terrain.   I love the muse my area provides yet I still am drawn to the geometry and colors of the vineyards that pepper the landscape from California into Oregon.   This is my visual playground and with my road trips and ever burgeoning photo library I have a plethora of imagery that continues to call me.    While I am usually excited about a recent expedition to go into the studio to explore I return often to trips and images from my past and revisit them in the studio.   There are many times I do not know what I am going to be painting on a particular day.   I visit my Iphoto libarary and a sequence of images will speak to me visually and I am on my way.

Here are some recent paintings.  I have been hooked on rural architecture for months now, segueing back into vineyards.  Other new pastels are posted in the Pastel Library and under Rural Architecture.

When I was a kid one of my favorite artists was Andrew Wyeth.   I had a book on his art and I remember studying it and admiring  the beautiful starkness of mood he was able to create with his gorgeous watercolors and egg tempera paintings, two media that I myself delved into “back in the day.”   Later it was Edward Hopper who I meditated on with abandon.   My dear friend from art school, Terry Jane and I flew to San Francisco from L.A. to see his retrospective at SF’s MOMA in 1981.   We still laugh because we had to carry our luggage through the museum.   Apparently we would have done anything to see a once in a lifetime event like that.   Hopper’s landscapes propelled the painter within me.    The common thread between the two is the sense of stillness, of solitude these artists so beautifully achieve in their depictions of scenes from their  surroundings and their travels.

In the series of work I have been developing over the past several years involving rural architecture, I feel a sense of going back to my roots as a painter to the initial inspirations that guided what my painting has always been about at its core.  Though my earliest work was decidedly more suburban in subject matter – as was my actual surroundings,  the thread of my early obsession with painting masters Wyeth and Hopper was always there.

In my work, and with pastel specifically there is a tendency for it to create a dreamlike atmospheric feeling in the finished work.    Since I continue to play with the premise of a heightened sense of reality or a dreamlike version of same, it continues to be my favorite medium of choice.   My latest completed pastel landscape painting in the rural architecture series is “Green Roofs.”  I was very attracted to this composition for its sense of disquieting calm amidst a blaze of color, pattern and light.

And the journey continues…..

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Continue reading ‘Early Heroes and the Rural Landscape’

In November my husband and I visited a favorite inn in Ashland Oregon, the Ashland Mountain House Bed and Breakfast.  This was our second trip at the same time of year.   We love the area in Southern Oregon and the rich fall colors of the landscape there.   My previous series revolving around Litha Park were created from there and I continue to reach into my vast array of photographic files and sketches to create studio paintings.   Interestingly from all of the beautiful landscapes I have captured on film, this little composition from the inn called to me.   At the time this was a sweet moment captured.  I remember wandering the grounds with my husband  as we crunched through a sea of leaves and  I happened upon this little courtyard.   I can still feel the crisp fall morning air as I look at this and how I felt at the time – very calm but alive, much like the scene.   There is something about small moments in time and how they resonate over and over.    I’ll still revisit the vast, colorful landscapes in future work but at times it is wonderful to be able to relive sweet moments in time through the process of painting.

"Arbor at the Inn" Pastel 14x11

In December I finished a commissioned painting – a 30×40″ pastel depicting the land and view of Mt. Diablo from the Emerson Dairy property in Oakley California.   I met Trish Emerson at the Sausalito Art Festival and she told me about having grown up in Oakley and the Dairy was in her family for generations going back to the late 1800’s.  Ironically enough, I had lived in the same area from 1989 through 1999 and was familiar with the arid landscape that exists there.

Now, the last of the land, property and buildings had been sold and she wanted to give her parents a gift for Christmas to memorialize the property – a pastel painting for their new home which they were in the process of building. After spending an afternoon walking the property and taking reference photographs I chose a composition from one of Trish’s favorite areas of the property to do the painting from.

On Christmas, Trish’s parents were presented with the painting and were reportedly elated.   This was one of the most enjoyable commissions I’ve worked on and I’ve created hundreds in my career.   Trish selected another painting I created from the site – of the grainery building seen below.   After giving a gift like that she had to go home with something  to remind  her  of such an amazing and historically significant place.   Thank you Trish and thank you Emerson Family!

"Yellow House at the End"

My recent pastel painting “Yellow House at the End”  received a “Best of Landscape” award at the 52nd Annual Spring Exhibition at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, CA this past weekend.   This is one of a continuing series I have been developing over the past few years of compositions from local alleys and street views from the area in which I live.    The juror for this event was Debra Lehane, curator of the Voigt Family Sculpture Foundation in Geyserville, CA.