Kathleen Howsare: A Highly Accomplished Landscape Artist by Michael Potashnik July 2024
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Kathleen Howsare has had a long love affair with art. She started painting when she was 8 years old and her talent and enthusiasm convinced her mother to arrange art lessons for her, as there were no art classes in her elementary school. She later majored in studio art and eventually earned a teaching certificate in art. For the next 30 years she taught art at the elementary school level in Fairfax and Stafford counties and in West Virginia, and, while teaching she got an MFA in painting from American University. With her retirement from teaching some 11 years ago, she finally was able to focus on her own painting. She loves to paint and does so almost every day. Some of her magnificent landscapes are shown below.
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To improve her painting, Kathleen has been taking landscape painting workshops for several years from Steven Walker, an award-winning artist, from Georgia whose work has been widely exhibited in shows and galleries throughout the United States. Kathleen first met Steven Walker in 2013 at a workshop he conducted in Leesburg. She was attracted to him because of his “calming personality.” and the way he taught. She was especially impressed with his landscape painting demonstrations and his use of light and color. A high point was when Kathleen participated in a workshop in Tuscany organized by Steven Walker. It was her first painting trip abroad and a magnificent experience she talks about enthusiastically. |
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Over the past 39 years, Kathleen has lived on 10 acres of a large farm near the Potomac River in Lovettsville, VA that was originally purchased by her parents when she was 11 years old. She loves the rural area and paints what is around her: the trees, the rivers, the creeks, and old barns. She especially loves to paint trees (as shown in these samples of her work) capturing their shape and color as well as the impact of light on them. She feels “It never gets old to see the trees change during the day and in different seasons”. She paints with the season so in winter she paints for spring shows. In spring she paints for fall shows. She is challenging herself to simplify her paintings by doing some plein air work. Her paintings are colorful, light-filled and lead the viewer in with her skilled use of depth. |
Kathleen currently paints in acrylics, although she has worked in oil, watercolors, tempera, and other media in her teaching. While she has been a member of the LSC for the past three years, she is not a plein air painter. She mainly works from her own photos of local scenes in Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia. She loves the Impressionists, Sargent, Van Gough, and Matisse, but also likes abstract painting. |
Kathleen is a highly accomplished artist. She has been juried into numerous shows over the years and has been widely recognized for her paintings in galleries. Her most recent juried exhibitions include inter alia: Cumberland Valley Artist’s Competition in Hagerstown MD, Being Seen at The Artist’s Gallery, Frederick MD, Small Works Show at Glave Kocen Gallery, Richmond VA, the 2nd Annual DMV exhibition at Calloway Fine Art and Consulting, Washington D.C, -Landscapes Near and Far at Fredericksburg Center for Creative Arts, Fredericksburg VA ( won first place) Museum of Hounds and Hunting North America Inc. juried show and sale at Morven Park Leesburg VA, Kathleen also regularly shows her works at Art at the Mill, Millwood, VA and at the Waterford annual fair. Her piece has been chosen for the brochure for the Waterford Fair 2024. Kathleen plans to continue painting rural landscapes and we can expect to see many more of these outstanding paintings in the future. |
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