About the Artist
Kay Carlson
Kay Carlson is a California plein air colorist working in the impressionist tradition. From her longtime waterfront studio in Sausalito she paints the light that transforms color: rowboats and sailboats resting on the bay, the Marin coast under shifting clouds, and the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma glowing with autumn. Her oil paintings begin outdoors at the easel and grow in the studio into larger canvases, some as big as 72 x 48 inches. Born in Marshfield, Wisconsin, she studied English Literature at the University of Wisconsin and then moved to San Francisco, where she did postgraduate study in painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. She worked for local galleries for several years, learning the business side of art, and later studied with Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri, Jove Wang and Cedrick Egeli. In 1990 she moved her studio to the Industrial Center Building in Sausalito, where she still paints today. Her career includes more than forty solo exhibitions and hundreds of group shows. Solo shows include the Robert Mondavi Winery, the University of California, San Francisco, Tiburon Town Hall and the BankAmerica World Headquarters in San Francisco. Her work has been shown at the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, at the Extemporanea di Nicola XXI in Tuscany, at the Marin Community Foundation and in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Oregon and California. She received the American Impressionist Society's 2nd Annual Merit Award, a Bronze Award in Camelback International Gallery's "Shades of Blue" (2022), and painted the poster for the 2004 Mill Valley Art Festival. Kay is also one of the people who shaped the Marin art community. In 1993 she co-founded Marin Open Studios with sculptor Tim Rose and philanthropist Peggy Haas, to help artists build their careers and connect with collectors. When the Marin Arts Council dissolved, she led the effort that relaunched MOS as a non-profit in 2013 and guided it as Executive Director for more than a decade, through Covid and into today's tour of over 275 artists each May. She now serves as its Founder Legacy Advisor and was a founding board member of the Sausalito Center for the Arts. She teaches plein air painting privately and at the Feather River Adult Art Camp, and coaches emerging artists on presenting their work professionally. Her paintings are available as originals, as commissions, and as signed, numbered archival prints made with master printmaker Craig Kolb.
“Sausalito plein air colorist painting the bay, the Marin coast and the wine country in oil, and co-founder of Marin Open Studios.”
The Process
Inside the Studio
The Painting Process
The Painting Process Kay paints where the light happens. She chooses places whose "essence and story are more than contours and lines": the Sausalito waterfront near her studio, the coast when waves, clouds and atmosphere create visual drama, and the Napa and Sonoma vineyards in autumn, where she sets up an outdoor easel with a palette "vibrant with scarlet autumn vines". Working en plein air, she builds each painting in layers: thin washes of oil paint first, then thick, confident brushstrokes on top. She looks for color inside the shadows, the place where, in her words, she finds her inspiration. The small location studies she paints outdoors often become the starting point for larger studio canvases, where she can push the color and the drama further. Beyond canvas, she paints on slabs of Carrara and Portuguese marble, letting the stone become part of the landscape. Collectors can also commission a painting of a favorite place or a special memory; Kay helps choose the size that fits the room. Every painting can also be made as an archival eight-colour print with master printmaker Craig Kolb, pencil signed, numbered and with a certificate of authenticity. She describes her paintings as "a joyful meditation on seeing, a dialogue in paint with the seasons, water, and land."
