Pleinstorm

Outdoor painting is local artist’s passion

Once she finds a piece of nature to focus her energies on, there is scarcely a detail that escapes the trained eye or the skilled paintbrush of Karen LaValley.

Though LaValley can paint in many different styles, her current fascination – and the style for which she is best known – is plein air.

Plein air is French for “open air” and describes this method of outdoor painting to a T. When circumstances permit, LaValley spends a lot of time outside with her painting, sometimes returning to the same location two or three times to finish.

LaValley holds a bachelor of fine arts in drawing and painting from The Ohio State University, where she studied under teachers who specialized in gestural techniques. She has worked in pastels, acrylics, charcoal and watercolor, though she now mostly uses oil.

“But any day, I could get the impulse to do a watercolor or a charcoal drawing,” she says.

After graduating, she focused mainly on figurative work. But about 18 years ago, two friends invited her to an outdoor painting session at a train depot in Canal Winchester, and LaValley discovered she had a taste for the technique. She has utilized it extensively since then.

“From that moment on, I was hooked on plein air,” she says.

Her interest can be piqued by a variety of sights – marshes, overgrown areas, flowers, wild grass, old houses, gnarled trees, anything “with some mystery,” she says. Among her favorite places to visit for inspiration are overgrown car pull-offs on Sunbury Road, the mud flats around Hoover Reservoir and a sunflower farm in Pickerington, and she has found places to paint in other parts of the country – such as the Rocky Mountains and Door County, Wis. – as well.

“When you’re an artist, it’s allencompassing,” she says. “Everywhere you go and everything you see, it’s all part of a painting.”

LaValley strives to make her paintings as true to life as possible and prefers the representation of nature they provide to that provided by a photograph. A photo, she says, cannot convey depth, intensity or motion like a well-done painting can.

“You really get the feeling of being there” with a painting, she says.

Though plein air is her passion, LaValley remains involved in other artistic pursuits, including portraits and still lifes.

LaValley is deeply involved in the local artistic community. She is a charter member of the Ohio Plein Air Society and a signature member of the Ohio Watercolor Society, and is always on the lookout for great art to experience.

In Westerville, she belongs to a group called Escape Artists who get together to paint around town; one member will find or hear about a great spot to paint, and contact the other members to coordinate a group visit. She is also part of a weekly figure painting studio at Gallery 202.

“We have a little group of friends who … paint each other,” says LaValley. “We always have a model.”

She also is involved in a group called Women’s Palette, which meets once a month to compare and critique paintings. Group members do not “spare any comments, good or bad,” LaValley says, which is a big help for her as an artist.

“It’s very difficult to be objective about your own work, especially if you’ve been staring at something forever,” she says.

When not directly involved in the visual arts, LaValley loves to go dancing – an interest she developed in her childhood, when her father owned a dancing school in Springfield.

She and her husband, Mark, have two grown children, both of them pursuing artistic endeavors. Son Grant is an artist in San Francisco, and daughter Brooke is a photographer here in central Ohio.

Garth Bishop is editor of Westerville Magazine. Feedback and comments welcome at gbishop@pubgroupltd.com.

by gail martineau