Laura Cunningham Art and Nature

In writing and illustrating my book, A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California (Heyday: 2010), I had originally intended it to be more of an art book, filled with pages of large oil paintings and field sketches. Something for the coffee table I had hoped. After four years of editing, the book turned out to be more text and somewhat less artwork, but Heyday did a wonderful job of creating a manageable, readable work from my unwieldy manuscript. Still a good art book, I thought. A lot of artwork was left on the cutting room floor, however, and I am going to use it for my upcoming book on Oil Painting Landscapes and Nature . Here are a sampling of illustrations I had completed years ago as Chapter title pages for A State of Change . I am re-purposing them now as new Chapter titles for my current manuscript. As an aside, I have been accused of having too many artistic "styles." But I enjoy exploring different media, materials, and stylistic expressions. Why should ...

I drove through Carrizo Plain in late April on the way to the Bay Area for some book and art events; I stopped, I walked around, I took photos, and my jaw dropped. Fields of hillside daisy ( Monolopia lanceolata ) on the valley floor. Hillside daisy patches. Thousands of acres of hillside daisy lighting up Carrizo Plain and the Temblor Range. My timing to visit the broad valley and surrounding South Coast Ranges in southern California was off, I had missed the peak according to all accounts on the Internet and social media. So I was not sure what I was going to encounter. Perhaps the Superbloom had dried up? No--it was amazing. In fact the best wildflower display I have ever seen in the California Floristic Province. It was epic. Prehistoric. What California might have been like before European Contact 300 years ago. I grew up in California and spent decades exploring the Golden State, searching out wildflower displays, observing and trying to see what the grassla...

My oil painting demo at Albany Hill, California, went well in April. I had a nice local area crowd show up for my outdoor demonstration of oil painting techniques and plein air methods. I had designed the hour-long class in the Bay Area to highlight basic oil painting materials and show beginning methods for understanding oil painting. I was pleased with the curiosity and enthusiasm, as many people had tried watercolor but wanted to explore oils. A few people had experience with oil painting and were eager to go deeper. Different oil painting set-ups, easels, and paint boxes for outdoor painting. Plus a table full of oil painting materials to show absolute beginners. The students told me that oil painting can be intimidating because of the huge selection of materials you encounter when walking into an art store. Where to start? So I designed this class to simplify and organize the variety of painting materials, and let students experiment with different methods to see what ...