Acclaimed Wambsgans to be SPSA
Demonstration Artist of the Month

April 10, 2015
Santa Paula News

An acclaimed and prolific artist will be the guest Sunday of the Santa Paula Society of the Arts where Laura Wambsgans will show her prize-winning plein air oil techniques.

As always, the April 12 Demonstration Artist meeting is free and open to the public that will have a chance to enter a raffle of the demonstration work.

SPSA members and guests will meet at 2 p.m. at the historic Depot Gallery on the upper level, located at the corner of 10th and East Santa Barbara streets. Wambsgans’ demonstration will follow the annual selection of SPSA officers for the coming year. The meeting will end at 4 p.m.

According to SPSA President Kaye Ford, Wambsgans “Will share her skills by painting in oil a landscape from a photograph — because every landscape painter needs to do that once in a while!”

Wambsgans, an oil painter and sculpture who also works in stone, “Will have some helpful tools and tips that cross all mediums.”

Ford noted that, “Laura is an award-winning artist in our 78th Annual Santa Paula Arts & Photography Show,” with an Honorable Mention in Oils.

Her painting is a “fantastic picture named ‘The Kid’, an adorable brown and white puppy,” that Ford said, “Everyone wanted to pet!”

Wambsgans also was a winner in the SPSA 71st Art and Photography Show garnering a 1st Place in her division as well as a 2nd Place Peoples Choice Award. Her work has also been displayed in the Santa Paula Art Museum.

A native of Pasadena now living in Santa Clarita, Wambsgans has won dozens of awards and been exhibited in hundreds of displays throughout California and beyond; her work — she has created more than a thousand paintings since she started her art career in about 1990 — is also represented by several galleries. 

From 1990 through 2006 Wambsgans attended MARBLE/Marble Stone Carving Symposiums, Marble, CO; in 1997 she honed her craft in a stone-carving workshop held in Pietra Santa, Italy where her instructors included Bruno Bresciani, Mirio Viviani, Kazutaka Uchida and Anthony Amato. She has also attended painting workshops and/or studied with John Cosby, Scott Christensen and Margot Lennartz.

A member of the California Art Club (CAC), Pasadena Society of Artists (PSA) and Oil Painters Of America (OPA), Wambsgans strives to connect the viewer of her art to the place that inspired it.

According to her artist’s statement, “While I was painting down at the beach a man jogged by my easel, stopped and walked back to me saying, ‘I run on this path everyday and never saw how beautiful the trees are until I saw your painting.’ It was a very kind statement and was a good example of what I am striving for in painting the landscape. In addition to capturing the scene I try to focus on the particular natural beauty of the area that connects the viewer of the artwork to the place.

“Typically my studio paintings evolve from smaller oil paintings created out of doors. The small ‘plein air’ studies allow me to capture the fleeting light and artistically remember the subtle nuances of the place.”

But, she noted, “I find myself in the studio hungering to paint from life and the canvases I am taking out in the field are increasing in size all the time.

“Nature is a constant source of inspiration and a tough instructor for me. I am so thankful for my life as an artist, experiencing the wonder of our planet.”

For more information on the Santa Paula Society of the Arts visit www.thespsa.com or call 805-525-1104.

The Gallery and Gift Shop — offering one of a kind handcrafted items and paintings in oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastels, digital art, hand painted boxes, collage, pen and inks, and lithographs, local and railroad theme cards as well as greeting cards and photography is open Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. and for tours by appointment.

Visit Wambsgans website at: http://laurawambsgans.com/home.php





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