Anje Olmstead demo at June ACAA Meeting

Artist Anje Olmstead brought her extensive experience and insight about creativity to the June 10 meeting of the Amador County Artists Association. She detailed the many paths she took through a career spanning 30 plus years.  Coming up to the present, she discussed the processes and tools she used to produce her current series of animals in garden settings.  Combining several sources, Anje creates transparencies of each part of her proposed composition.  Using an overhead projector, she tries out a variety of configurations, adjusting the relationship among the parts as well as the size of each component, to come up with the final composition. 

To help all of us in our endeavors, she had numerous suggestions:  Find something inspirational and exciting.  Humor is good.  Use ideas from magazines and study the top artists.  Don’t do what everyone else is doing.  Figure out what your market is and create with that in mind.  If you are selling a certain type of art, keep doing it.  Come up with a series title and use it to challenger yourself.  Join a critique group or at least show your work to others. 

If you haven’t already, take a trip to the entry of Margaret’s Café at the Jackson Rancheria to view Anje’s 8 x 9-foot collage portrait of former Rancheria leader Margaret Dalton.  This piece amply demonstrates Anje’s creativity and resourcefulness.  You can also view her paintings and collages at Sutter Creek Gallery.      

Sutter Creek Gallery features illustrator and former Disney animator Scott Anderson in July

“The outdoor experience for me has always been one of adventure, awe, and a sense of divine peace,” says oil painter Scott Anderson, who will be Sutter Creek Gallery’s featured artist for July.  Painting helps him to understand and admire the beauty that surrounds us. The endless sounds of water rushing, birds singing, critters moving in the brush, and breathing the crisp air helps Anderson to see and feel what ultimately gets put down on canvas.  “I suppose I want others to observe and take in what I have found in nature to be exciting and inspiring, a place in time where my soul has been re-energized,” he explains.

Anderson graduated from Art Center College of Design in So. California with Honors in Illustration. He began as a freelance illustrator in Los Angeles, continuing as an animator for DreamWorks.  He then worked for seventeen years as an animator for Walt Disney Pictures on full length features such as "The Little Mermaid,” "Aladdin," "Beauty and the Beast," "Lion King," "Tarzan," and "Mulan.”  Most recently, Anderson joined the Sutter Creek Gallery where his landscapes are on display.

The gallery invites you to meet Scott Anderson at the reception in his honor on Saturday, July 4, from 4 to 7 p.m., as part of the region's First Saturday Art Trek.  He is one of the local artists exhibiting at the cooperative located in the heart of Sutter Creek at 35 Main Street. Besides original paintings, Sutter Creek Gallery offers many affordable items including prints, cards, jewelry, gourds and fiber arts. The gallery is open Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call (209) 267-0228, email suttercreekgallery@gmail.com or visit www.suttercreekgallery.com.  

Artist and Educator Barbara Hoffmann is the Featured Artist at Gallery 10 in Sutter Creek

Barbara Hoffmann: Artist/Educator - Dragon Wing Studio

Barbara Hoffmann is an artist living in Alta California and has been painting for the past 20 years. She uses a variety of subjects in her work and works in various watermedia techniques.

Her latest works are mixed media on canvas combining monoprints, water color, and collage on a wide range of subjects. This permits her to use vivid colors often based on the unexpected results of her monoprints that embrace representative realism and conceptual abstraction.

One of her most recent works gave voice to her vision and vision to her voice with a painting inspired by the music sung by the Auburn Colla Voce Chamber Choir.

She presently is working in collaboration with Deborah Pittman, a colleague, in a show titled Sacred Places, Sacred Spaces combining large installation pieces with smaller individual pieces using found and repurposed materials.

She has been in numerous shows and most recently in the juried show at the Arts Building sponsored by Placer Arts League in Auburn and the “Blooming Show” in the General Gomez Gallery in Auburn.

She has participated in many art walks and studio tours in Auburn, Colfax, and Grass Valley and has been the featured artist in the gallery in Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital. Her work can be seen currently in The Old Town Gallery in Auburn and Gallery 10 in Sutter Creek.

She has taught for over thirty years and currently teaches watercolor in Dutch Flat.

​Doug Lawler 2-Day Oil Pastels Workshop at Petroglyphe

Art instructor, Doug Lawler has become a favorite of students at Petroglyphe and will be offering another transformational workshop. This time it will be 2 days of hands-on exploration with Oil Pastels. Doug’s work taps into the subconscious, creating unique conceptual compositions. This class is offered for beginners and more advance students alike, allowing an opportunity to discover the artist within in the warm gallery studio setting.

Oil Pastels, A Study of Possibilities with Doug Lawler, Saturday & Sunday, June 6-7, 10 am – 4-m

This workshop will explore the exciting and limitless possibilities of working with Oil Pastels.  The instructor will walk students through the composition of the medium and various application techniques, while helping students understand the complexities of color and ways to “coax” images from layers of oil pastels.  All levels are welcome.

Doug Lawler is best known for his copper plate etching prints and his pastel works of art. His career has taken him all over the world where his work has been exhibited in galleries and honored with awards, including San Francisco for over 12 years.  For a time he worked as a free-lance fine arts conservator at the Oakland Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the San Francisco Palace of Legion of Honor Museum.  In recent years he’s made a return to creating art in pastel and printmaking.

Be sure to spend the 4th of July in Mokelumne Hill for the traditional Parade and Celebration. It offers a true taste of Americana, and there are lots of fun activities for the entire family starting with a pancake breakfast at the Town Hall from 7:30 – 11:00 am. Then comes the famous parade at 11:00 am followed by children’s games in the park, vendors, music and food.

Petroglyphe Gallery is located at 8317 Main Street in Mokelumne Hill. Give the gallery a call at 209-286-1387 to reserve workshop space or to order your Sunday Concert tickets. The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from11:30 am to 5:30 pm; and Sunday from 11:30 am to 4:00 pm. For more information visit www.gallerypetroglyphe.com   

"Girl Playing With Light" by Doug Lawler