Ad
LOS LUNAS—With each brush stroke, the enchantment of what New Mexico offers will soon be on display in the art created by the members of Camino Real Artists.
For more than 15 years, the group of artists — which was originally called Camino Real 8 — have been creating and corroborating with each other to learn and generate works of art.
The Camino Real Artists are featuring their work in a new exhibit, “Winter into Spring Show,” from Feb. 22 to April 19. An opening reception will be held from 2-4 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 22, at the Los Lunas Museum of Heritage and Arts, 251 Main St.
The artists in Camino Real Artists include Gwen Wilemon, Lorraine Burlison, Susan Brooke, Sondra Schlotterback, Fran Ryan, Duffy Peterson, Penny York, Patty Gallegos, Jeri Schmetterer and Jean Stone.
This is the third time the Camino Real Artists has exhibited their work at the museum in Los Lunas. The annual show has moved from Belen to Socorro and other places within the Camino Real area.
Susan Brooke, one of the founding members of the Camino Real Artists, dabbles in a lot of different mediums but says she prefers working with oil because it’s “much more forgiving” if she makes a mistake.
She says every artist in the group works in different mediums, such as watercolor, acrylics, mixed media and even pen and ink. There will be more than 50 original paintings at the “Winter into Spring Show,” along with a new art medium this year — pottery.
The group meets several times a month throughout the year.
“We plain air paint — when the weather permits — we’ll do it about once a week together, and the meetings when we critique each other is about once a month,” Brooke said. “We sit and discuss our paintings.”
The artists have and will go nearly anywhere to paint, and have been to areas from Las Vegas, N.M., to Magdelena to Ruidoso, where there are areas of great light, nice scenery and beautiful views.
Ad
“This is a good educational show because it covers all mediums,” Brooke said. “It’s almost like a history of New Mexico. Almost everything in the show will be New Mexico-based scenes. We don’t have any New York skyscrapers in this show.”
New to this year’s event is that visitors will be able to take the New Mexico Rail Runner Express to Los Lunas and when you call the museum, they’ll be able to pick you up and take you back to the train station.
“It’s all free for them because (the museum) now has transportation,” Brooke said.
Several of the artists in the group will be hosting demonstrations from 2-4 p.m. every Saturday (including refreshments) at the museum:
March 1: Susan Brooke, of Belen, will present a demonstration on oil painting techniques. At the end, there will be a drawing for the wet oil.
March 8: Penny York, of Los Lunas, will present a two hour demonstration on ink work.
March 15: Fran Ryan, of Albuquerque, will hold a demonstration starting and using a photo with your painting.
March 22: Jean Stone will demonstrate methods and painting with watercolor.
March 29: Sondra Schlotterback will demonstrate the techniques with painting with pastels.
April 5: Patti Gallegos will demonstrate and discuss color theory using acrylic, which applies to all mediums.
