Claudia Brookes

An offering of the Saint James On-line Gallery: discover the art of good works.

Award-winning artist Claudia L. Brookes paints in two mediums, watercolors and oils. She teaches watercolor classes to all levels of students emphasizing the wet-on-wet techniques for which she is best known. Brookes paints most frequently in an alla prima, "all-at-one-go" style. She says "My sittings may last 2 hours or 10 hours, but I feel that the mood, and therefore the 'handwriting' of a piece will change from day to day, so I like to finish each piece, if possible, in the same spirit that it was started." However, this does not mean that she is not capable of fine and careful drawing, and her commissioned pieces and her well-known horse racing subjects may take many weeks of planning and drawing. The artist has been selected as a juried competitor in many prestigious plein air competitions since first gaining an interest in these events in 2007. In 2009, she will participate in the Wayne Arts Center Plein Air Festival (Wayne, PA), Mountain Maryland Plein Air (Cumberland, MD), and Plein Air Easton (Easton, MD). In 2008 she participated in Plein Air Easton and Paint Annapolis (Annapolis, MD), and in 2007in Paint Annapolis and the Havre de Grace Plein Air Competition (Havre de Grace, MD). Brookes has been a signature member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society since 2002 and has been an active member of the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association (MAPAPA) since 2007.