Category Archives: Blog

Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas

Bita Beach, Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas 9″ x 12″ Oil on Gesso Board

I spent January exploring the most fabulous 1.5 square miles, walking beaches instead of shoveling record snowfall in Colorado.
Green Turtle Cay is one of the barrier islands off mainland Great Abaco The Bahamas. It is considered part of the “Abaco Out Islands” and is 3 miles long and ½ mile wide. It was named after the once abundant green turtles that inhabited the area. Wikipedia

A wonderfully generous painting student has a house on White Sound. She and her husband offered me the use of their house for a month after taking my course. (Understanding Clouds) That course is no longer offered through Artist’s Network University, so I’ll be making it available through my own website later this year. Yes, this was an online course, so I had never met my hosts in person until two planes and a ferry brought me to their dock. It pays to have a good sense of people and I feel that this whole adventure is a natural outcome of teaching with a desire to inspire creativity and take artistic risks. Learning to paint better is a byproduct.

While on the island, I used the solitude to work on a first draft of a new screenplay. ( ritadoyleroberts.com ) Now that the story is nearly ready to send out, I am happy to be painting again…. but I do miss those beautiful beaches.

Also posted in Creative Process, Events, Featured, Uncategorized, Writings

New Print Available – Mount Blanca

“Dusting of Snow on Mount Blanca”
12″ x 14″ Giclee Print on Canvas, Stretched

Sides printed black and ready to hang.

I was recently contacted by a someone who grew up in the San Luis Valley but now lives in Utah. He misses the landscape of his home and nothing says SLV more than Mount Blanca. He found me and this painting in a Google search. This piece is in the permanent collection of Trinidad State Junior College – Alamosa Campus so I had this print made for him. Now it’s available to all.

 

History of Mount Blanca

(from Wikipedia)
Blanca Peak is known to the Navajo people as the Sacred Mountain of the East: Sisnaajiní[8] (or Tsisnaasjiní[9]), the Dawn or White Shell Mountain. The mountain is considered to be the eastern boundary of the Dinetah, the traditional Navajo homeland. It is associated with the color white, and is said to be covered in daylight and dawn and fastened to the ground with lightning. It is gendered male.[8]

Summitpost notes that “the first recorded ascent of Blanca by the Wheeler Survey was recorded on August 14, 1874, but to their surprise they found evidence of a stone structure possibly built by Ute Indians or wandering Spaniards.”[10]

Also posted in Collectors, Creative Process, Events, Featured, What's New?

Open Studio 2016

#17_RRobertsTuesday through Saturday
10 am – 5 pm
Or call for appointment: 719-852-6976

The studio is loaded with original art plus signed, giclee prints and greeting cards. I’ll be doing small watercolor paintings and/or oil pastel drawings each day of the open studio. These new pieces will be available immediately to the first bidder.

Much of my year has been focused on writing. I’ve revised a children’s book manuscript and now I am writing a screenplay for the animated film version of the same story. It’s a different brain process, making vivid pictures with words. The result has been that my artwork has become less literal, less representational. I’ve been exploring color, texture and unconscious prompts. This image is a detail of one of those explorations.

I still do representational work and I’ll show that here too, during Open Studio. I’d love for any of these paintings to find their permanent homes while the Studio is open for visitors. This is your annual opportunity to take home affordable art work, directly from the artist, or just to see what’s going on.

Please share this event with your friends.

Daily posts will be made at these links:
https://www.facebook.com/RitaRoberts.Artist/
https://www.facebook.com/RitaRoberts.Prints/
https://www.facebook.com/rita.roberts.7982
https://twitter.com/RitaDRoberts
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritadroberts

Also posted in Creative Process, Events, Featured, Uncategorized, What's New?

Art for the Endangered Landscape Honoring Wolf Creek

AEL_RRoberts

“The Fire Below” and “Sunset Clouds” 14″ x 14″ Oil on Canvas, $1,960 each. Click on image for a larger view.

Art for the Endangered Landscape Show and Sale

Paintings, Sculpture, Photography, Jewelry by 40 Regional Artists. Proceeds go to help us keep Wolf Creek Wild.
Opening reception: 

at 4:00pm – 7:00pm

For more information go to www.slvec.org
You may visit the show Monday through Friday from 9am to 5 pm from December 7 to December 19, 2015
Community Partnerships Gallery at Adams State University, Alamosa, Colorado.

Wolf Creek Pass and its heavily used highway corridor hold a critical place in the ongoing struggle to balance natural systems with human disruption. The pass bisects some of the wildest remaining primitive country in the southern Rocky Mountains. To the north of the pass is half-million acre Weminuche Wildernss and to the south is the South San Juan Wilderness holding 160,000 acres. The boundaries of these two wilderness areas come to within 6 miles of each other at their closest proximity, but those are treacherous miles for wildlife and plant populations to negotiate.

Wolf Creek was also the area selected to release the reintroduced Canada lynx, an endangered species throughout its historic range.

The most controversial endangerment to consider is a 10,000- person resort complex proposed by developers on a piece of private land adjacent to Wolf Creek Ski Area.

From its origination as a questionable land exchange in 1986 to its current incarnation of transfering yet again more public land, this proposal has galvanized opposing factions. For more in-depth information on this aspect go to Wolf Creek Developments.

The Art for the Endangered Landscape project strives to shed a different light on development issues from the aspect of loss of visual beauty. This art celebration also honors what we have now and what we have to lose in a tangible and visceral manner.

Also posted in Collaborative Works, Events, Featured, Uncategorized, What's New?

Cover Art for Colorado Central Magazine

CCOctCover2015FINALColorado Central Magazine
cozine.com

About the painting:  This oil painting depicts fall cottonwoods on the historic Garcia Ranch. Reyes Garcia is now the steward of this ranch and allowed me to take a walk and paint this beautiful piece of property. As a retired professor of philosophy, environmental and indigenous studies, Reyes is deeply attuned to the legacy of his family’s land and the way of life it has provided for generations. With the Garcia family having originally settled in Conejos County in the 1850’s, he has a long history rooted in the special area between the Conejos and San Antonio Rivers in the southern part of the San Luis Valley.

Conserving the land and water is a way “to make my own small contribution to preserving the family legacy of ranching and the land-based culture of the ranchero tradition,” Garcia writes. “… I came to understand this tradition includes putting into practice ecological values by virtue of an instinctual love of the land that engenders good stewardship and a deep respect for all life forms, the seasonal rotation of livestock and their humane treatment, the acequia irrigation system especially, the transmission of skills which make self-reliance possible…”

in 2013, the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust worked with Reyes to complete a voluntary conservation easement on the spectacular Garcia Ranch, to insure that this working ranch will remain intact with its senior water rights in perpetuity. Learn more about RiGHT’s ongoing conservation work and the ranch at www.riograndelandtrust.org

Also posted in Collaborative Works, Collectors, Creative Process, Events, Featured, Uncategorized, What's New?, Writings

Exhibiting at Prestigious Salmagundi Club in NYC

SpringThawRRoberts

Spring Thaw, 12″ x 12″, Oil on Canvas

EVENT:  Virtuosos of the OPA Exhibition

WHERE:  Salmagundi Club
47 5th Avenue,
New York, NY

DATES:  September 17 through October 1, 2015

One of the leading art organizations in North America, the 3,500 member strong Oil Painters of America will hold its first-ever “Virtuosos of the OPA” Exhibition in the upper gallery of the prestigious Salmagundi Club in New York City, September 17 through October 1, 2015. Founded in 1871, the Salmagundi Club is one of the oldest art organizations in the United States.

A painting by Rita Roberts will hang alongside a number of familiar names in this select, nationally and internationally acclaimed group of artists.  Participating artists have all achieved Signature or Master Signature status obtained only by going through a rigorous application and vetting process.

Well known around the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado, Rita’s paintings are beloved for capturing the essence of this region. The painting included is an early spring scene of ice patches on the Empire Canal, a favorite spot of the artist on her daily walks near Home Lake.

Visit http://blog.oilpaintersofamerica.com/salmagundi/ to learn more about the organization and see the entire exhibit.

Also posted in Featured, What's New?

Paint-Out to Celebrate the Wilderness Act

50th Wilderness Paint Out FLyer copy

 

The Wilderness Act is well known for its succinct and poetic definition of wilderness:

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

14-2 Mountain Buddies_RRoberts

“Mountain Buddies” 10″ x 10″, Oil on Canvas. Available after the Paint Out at Frame Shop Creede.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–577) was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society. It created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected 9.1 million acres (36,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a long effort to protect federal wilderness and to create a formal mechanism for designating wilderness, the Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964 after over sixty drafts and eight years of work. — from Wikipedia

The two equine friends are regulars to the Park Corrals. Friendly, always ready for a pet or a treat. Carrots are on my list of supplies to take some carrots to the paint out.

See you there!

 

Also posted in Events, Featured, What's New?

Online Auction Slated for November 1st, 2014

This painting will be up for auction in a “live” 13 hour period over the internet.

Oil on Linen, 16 x 24″ Low clouds at high altitude slide along the valley floor. This scene appears to be embellished, but these cloud formations are typical of March in the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado, the largest alpine valley in North America.

Details for the site and log in information will follow soon.

Skirting the Neatherlands_RRoberts

Skirting the Netherlands #2

Also posted in Events, What's New?

Tiers of a Storm in the Land of Contradictions

Tiers of a Storm_RRoberts

Tiers of a Storm, 48″ x 48″ Oil on Canvas

Tiers of a Storm has been submitted to the Colorado Public Arts projects for consideration to be included in the collection of a local institution, Adams State University. More than a typical sky-scape which the San Luis Valley is known for, this painting is also about the agricultural lifeblood of this area. The grid pattern which recedes into the clouds throughout the piece represents the inorganic grid pattern of the SLV, which creates a land of one-mile, perfected, quilt-like squares in what is otherwise a harsh and wild climate. The cut wheat slashes a bright accent line under a cold, threatening sky. The San Luis Valley is a land of contradictions, as is this painting. Not only in its composition, but as one still moment captured in paint, but when viewing it, the clouds appear to move.

Also posted in Collaborative Works, Creative Process, Events, Featured, Uncategorized, What's New?

Chance Encounters Exhibit

Exhibit Opens November 30th!

ANNOUNCING:  CHANCE ENCOUNTERS with ANDONI CANELA & RITA ROBERTS

Firedworks Gallery is pleased to present Chance Encounters,
an exhibit with the artwork of Rita Roberts and photographs of Andoni Canela.

Some of the paintings and photographs can be seen at:  www.ritaroberts.com/chance-encounters

Opening Reception and for the artists:  Friday, November 30th, 7 – 9 pm
Video and presentation at 7:30 pm
Show will be on view through the holidays.

THE EXHIBIT. LIGHT, LANDSCAPE AND WILDLIFE OF THE SAN LUIS VALLEY

Twenty-two paintings and photographs that reflect the incredible diversity of the San Luis Valley will be on view at Firedworks Gallery in Alamosa. Two masters experience and observe together, the rhythms of art and nature, as an integral part of their creations. Each, in their own way, generate images in devotion to the wild, as well as the personal.
Both artists have contributed to land and wildlife conservation efforts. The Chance Encounters collection includes habitats protected by the Rio Grande Headwater’s Land Trust (RiGHT), the Nature Conservancy, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Monte Vista and Alamosa Wildlife Refuges, and Colorado State Wildlife areas.

THE ARTISTS

Andoni Canela.
Inline image 1

For 20 years, Andoni Canela has been working as a wildlife photographer, traveling throughout the world in search of endangered species – such as polar bears, grey whales, Bengal tigers, Iberian wolves, pandas, grizzlies, condors and quetzals. His photographs have been published in National Geographic, Time, Geo, The Sunday Times, Newsweek, La Vanguardia and El País. He is the author of a dozen books and has made several expeditions to the Arctic, Amazon, Himalayas and the savannas of Africa. Beginning in the summer 2013 he has a touring exhibition with his 5 year work on the Arctic. This exhibition will be on view in more than 40 cities in Spain.

Rita Roberts.
Inline image 2

Artist, and long-time resident of Monte Vista, Rita Roberts, has teamed up with this master photographer. As a naturalist and landscape painter, Rita’s work has gained national attention. She is a signature member of Oil Painters of America and has been featured in national publications including, Southwest Art, American Art Collector, and The Artist’s Magazine. She holds a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and will complete an MFA at the Academy of Art University in 2014. She shows regularly in prestigious exhibits like Salon International in San Antonio, Women Artists of the West Invitational, Tucson and Wendt Gallery Invitationals in Laguna Beach.

Gallery hours are 10 am to 6 pm seven days a week through December. For more information please contact Carol Mondragon carol@firedworks.com or 719-589-6064. Some of the paintings and photographs can be seen at:  www.ritaroberts.com/chance-encounters

Inline image 3

Firedworks Gallery
608 Main Street
Alamosa, CO 81101
719-589-6064    Email:  carol@firedworks.com

Also posted in Collaborative Works, Creative Process, Events, Featured, What's New?, Writings