News release
Glen Knowles will be demonstrating roses painting in oil on Monday, Sept. 19, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. for the Santa Clarita Artists Association.
It will be held live at the Main Theatre, 24266 Main St., Newhall. Attendance is free to the public.
“For this demonstration I will be painting a bouquet of large cabbage-type roses in oil,” said Knowles. “This demo will be inspired by the paintings of Franz Bischoff. Born in Austria in 1864, he moved to America, eventually establishing his own ceramic studio in Michigan. Here Bischoff perfected a technique of painting on ceramics that established him as one of the nation’s greatest ceramic painters and earned him the title ‘King of the Roses.’”
In 1906 Bischoff moved to the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena and began painting roses, among other flowers and landscapes in oil. His title followed him and his oil paintings of roses garnered him great praise. He exhibited a rose oil painting in a California Art Club show in 1911.
”Over the last decade I have taught a popular lesson in my painting classes … on creating a floral painting from imagination where I cover some of the principles of composition and design I have gleaned from studying florals by many artists over the last several hundred years,” said Knowles.
For five years Knowles has taught classes on drawing animals from life at the Los Angeles Zoo. Knowles is the inventor of the ColorWheel palette, a color theory mixing system in 75 countries worldwide.
North Light Books’ “Splash 3” called Knowles one of America’s top 105 contemporary watercolor painters.
He’s accomplished in both oil and watercolor and has taught a variety of art classes for the last 20 years, emphasizing drawing and painting, portraiture, color theory and design, composition, and a unique class on digital life drawing.
Throughout his career he has been inspired by the early California Impressionist oil painters and California-style watercolorists, ultimately organizing six exhibitions on the history of Southern California art and artists.
Knowles loves the adventure of combining painting and travel, painting across five European countries and in the John Muir wilderness of the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Knowles graduated from Art Center College of Design in 1975 with a degree in illustration and an emphasis on painting. In 1975, he began receiving critiques from artist Robert Clunie, a 50-year veteran of outdoor painting who resided in Bishop. He received additional instruction from John Asaro, Rex Brandt, Glenn Vilppu and Robert E. Wood.
He is a third-generation Southern Californian whose family settled in Long Beach in 1909. During the 1920s his grandfather owned and operated the Silverado mine on Saddleback Mountain in Orange County. In the 1960s his father was instrumental in introducing Kiwi fruit to America.
For more information on the artist, visit www.glenknowlesfineart.com/watercolors.html.
