Claudia L. Brookes Biography I have been a professional artist for nearly 20 years, and taught private watercolor classes during most of that period although I paint in both watercolors and oils. Art is my second career, after many years as a medical publisher. For all of my adult life I have lived in Maryland, where I worked, married, and raised a family, but I was privileged to grow up near Boston with ready access to art materials and museums as well as plenty of encouragement in my artistic pursuits from my family. My interest in plein air work has influenced my painting, and whenever feasible, this is how I paint. I love the immediacy and freshness of paintings created on location as well as the challenge of capturing the particular lighting effect of an exact time and place. Whether on location or in the studio, my preferred method of painting is a wet-on-wet, alla prima (“all-at-one-go”) style, and this approach adapts well to plein air work. The challenge of laying one loaded stroke next to another without creating “mud” is a learned skill, but well worth the end result for the painter who treasures the beauty of visible brushstrokes. I enjoy plein air events despite their “marathon” quality, where artists paint for consecutive days from early morning to dusk and even into the night. Over the years I have been privileged to participate in more than 30 juried plein air competitions, including repeated years in Plein Air Easton, Wayne Plein Air, Paint Annapolis, Mountain Maryland Plein Air, Solomons Plein Air Festival, New Hope Plein Air, Havre de Grace Plein Air, and Plein Air Rockies, as well as numerous other non-juried plein air events. My chief influences are the plein air painters of Cape Ann, MA, Cos Cob, CT, New Hope, PA, as well as the early 20th Century California painters. I am represented by the following galleries: Argosy Gallery, Bar Harbor, ME; Landmark Gallery, Kennebunkport, ME; Pink Papaya, St. John, USVI. Wherever i travel, I paint. And always, the perfect light is waiting.