Blog

Wednesday Plein Air Painters Meetup - July 2023

7/12/2023 1:29:33 PM

July 12th everyone gathered at the Arroyo Nature preserve in Rancho Santa Fe to paint the beautiful reflections in the pond surrounded by trees and shade.

We paint from 9am to noon usually on Wednesdays. You can come and go as you like. We meet when the weather is good (no rain, no wind, no cold). It is open to only Rancho Santa Fe Art Guild members after signing a Waiver of Responsibility.

Contact [email protected] to get on the email notification list and for the Waiver of Responsibility.

Sunny Apinchapong-Yang Painting Demo May 15th, 2023

7/12/2023 12:12:03 AM

The Rancho Santa Fe Art Guild presents to their members and guests a group of six artists who each month will be demonstrating and lecturing about their painting skills at the Schaefer studio.

Sunny was our third demo artist, he has so much to teach us about getting down to business with regard to drawing, color, and impasto paint. A real painters painter, it's an education just to watch him work.

Kathryn R. Stephens - A Dragonfly In The Moment

7/12/2023 12:11:25 AM

If you are like me, you may have wondered about the many new faces seated at the RSF Art Guild board meeting this year. Board president Dottie Stanley has recruited several new members to the board from the La Jolla Art Association. As you may recall from our October 2021 feature on Dottie, her years of excellent work with the La Jolla Art Association is quite impressive. Through Dottie’s subtle encouragement several new volunteers have joined the board and are bringing some fresh ideas to the Ranch Guild. One who heard Dottie’s calling is Kathryn Stephens. This year Kathryn took on the role of RSF Art Guild board secretary and Co-Vice president. Our monthly Newsletter has been focused on all the wonderful demo artists the Guild has presented, so for the summer break I thought we’d find out more about some artists who volunteer. Please meet Kathryn Stephens.

Kathryn Redding Stephens was born in LA but raised in Oklahoma. She found her creative outlet early through her love of fashion. At age 18 she left Tulsa for the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising to study fashion. Arriving in LA she was quickly picked out of the crowd by Nina Blanchard of the Nina Blanchard Agency and then recruited by the preeminent Ford Models Agency in New York. Kathryn successfully modeled for 12 years and was featured in Vogue, appeared on the Merv Griffin Show and was a favorite of the famous fashion photographer, Richard Avedon. Based in NYC but traveling the world as a fashion model Kathryn continued to do her needle point or other crafts to satisfy her creative urge.

Back in LA she met and married her husband, John, who was practicing law. The busy couple moved to NYC, and after a period of many years decided a change was needed. NYC to Alpine, San Diego was their plan and where they started their family. But a few seasons in Alpine – although a beautiful spot on God’s green earth – it seemed a bit too “Green Acres” and provincial for the Stephens family. That plus the constant fear of the “fire season” chased the family to La Jolla. In La Jolla Kathryn taught art and art history at Bird Rock Elementary for two years as a certified contractor with the San Diego Unified School District. She stepped into the world of the master painters bringing her students along. Throughout the years Kathryn brought Matisse, Monet, Picasso, O’Keefe, Van Gogh, and Warhol into the lives of her young students. She also loves Sorolla, Wyeth, Mary Cassett and John Singer Sargent. She may even be a distant relative of Sargent’s, according to her genealogy enthusiast cousin.

From there, as her children grew and left the nest, she volunteered with Las Patronas and even chaired the Jewel Ball – ARTRAGEOUS in 2007. She worked on many huge murals and community projects at this time.

For the past 8 years Kathryn worked full time as the Director of Philanthropy at Walden Family Services. She still does this, but this year is special. Like a dragonfly in summer, Kathryn feels it’s her year to transition away from her focus on her community to focusing on her own artistic creativity.

Kathryn’s choice of medium in art is about as diverse and as creative as her past. She works in oil, but she was just awarded a third-place ribbon at the SD County Fair for her painting of a beautiful 18x24 mixed media collage. The collage was also the featured painting for the La Jolla Secret Garden Tour this year. Kathryn tells me she prefers to paint figures and her fans love her lemons, but the La Jolla Garden tour pushed her out of her comfort zone, and she painted a garden scene. She explained to me how she loves to try new things and piqued my interest with her use of cold wax paste with oil paint. Gamblin cold wax medium, she explains, makes your paint opaque and thick. I just ordered some from Blick to try it out myself.

She doesn’t stop there. Last month she took a class on how to apply gold leaf to paintings. She was intrigued by gold leaf’s history in Islam. She is adding this technique to her repertoire and her diverse style.

That’s just one of the many mediums Kathryn works in. She loves oils, acrylics and collage. She also likes the idea of incorporating drawings, watercolors, and fine and rare types of paper to illustrate a story. She’s extremely excited about the handmade rice papers her sister-in-law is making and sending her from South Korea. She was inspired by Brooklyn-based Columbian collage artist, Maria Barrio. Barrio’s large-scale works are crafted with layers of Japanese paper.

For Kathryn art is all about light and capturing moments. She doesn’t mean those curated moments seen on social media but those true and simple things in life – that moment of Zen. Kathryn tells me about her new series she hopes to begin as she unwinds herself from community service. Although this new series is still in the planning stages, Kathryn describes the series as just those types of moments of her father – living a 1950’s moment.

Kathryn also finds beauty where many may not. She sees beauty in the wrinkled hands and faces of figures that she is moved to paint. Kathryn also divulges that she is naturally political, but art pulls her out and into both a mental calm and a creative challenge.

This year, Kathryn is the dragonfly. A dragonfly in the moment. And a good year so far with a ribbon at the fair, and a successful library show selling many of her paintings. Also, this year Kathryn is participating in the 3rd annual SD Coastal Art Studios Tour on Sept 16th.

Thanks for coming on board Kathryn. We appreciate your service to our community. Please view Kathryn’s body of work on her website.

Kathryn Stephens Website: www.kathrynrstephens.com/new-page