SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Classes
Tracy Nelson
Summer is coming, and you may be wondering what to do to fill those long, hot days. When it’s too hot to hit the courts or the golf course, you can be learning to paint a desert silhouette in acrylics or to make your own beautiful basket. Sign up for one of these fun classes today.
All classes are located in the Topaz Room at the Arts & Crafts Center adjacent to MountainView Country Club. Membership in the SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild is only $25 per year and includes many benefits and activities. Guild members also enjoy a discount on class fees. New classes are added weekly. Check back often for the latest updates. Visit the guild’s website at www.saddlebrookefinearts.org for convenient online registration and payment.
Acrylic Sunset Desert Silhouettes, by Tracy Ann Holmes
Tuesday, April 29, from 9 a.m. until noon
A fun class for all levels. We will be learning how to paint gradients and soft blends in acrylic to make a beautiful sunset. You may freehand or use provided stencils to create your desert plants. All supplies are provided. You will go home with a finished 9×12-inch canvas board.
Wrapped Coiled Basketry, by Nancy McCluskey-Moore
Thursdays, May 8 and May 15, from 9 a.m. until noon
Learn how to create wrapped coil baskets using paper coil and yarn. You’ll learn how to start a basket, plan a design, and finish the basket’s rim. Examples will be provided of ways to embellish baskets with beads, buttons, and found objects and ways to use materials other than yarn to wrap the coil. The class is held over half-day sessions, two weeks apart, to provide time to work on your project prior to the second meeting. Handouts, needles, and paper coiling will be provided. Yarn will be provided, but class attendees are welcome to bring additional yarn and items for embellishment.
The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt
Join Us for the May 21 Art Salon Discussion
Jenni Long
The Art Salon, hosted by the SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild, is a place where like-minded artists come together in a friendly environment to bond, network, and learn from one another. Meetings are held the third Wednesday of each month from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the Topaz Room at the Arts & Crafts Center adjacent to MountainView Country Club. All SaddleBrooke residents are invited to join, whether or not they’re a member of the guild. Refreshments are provided, no reservations are needed, and there is no charge.
The next Art Salon will be held on May 21 at 10:30 a.m. in the Topaz Room, and the topic will be “Art is a bridge between the soul and the world.” —Gustav Klimt
Join us and discover why Gustav Klimt is still such a valuable painter today! In 2006 Oprah Winfrey paid $88 million for Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer (Woman in Gold). It was resold in 2015 for $150 million—a good investment!
Marilynn Davis spent time in Vienna in 2024, particularly at the Belvedere Museum where most of Klimt’s major works are housed. She will present the topic.
During the 1890s until 1914, there was a rebirth in Viennese culture. Gustav Klimt, along with Sigmund Freud, Arnold Schoenberg, Mahler, and Otto Wagner, was instrumental in creating a new direction toward Modernism.
Gustav Klimt was a key figure in Viennese Secession and Symbolism. Known for his highly decorative paintings featuring gold-leaf, erotic themes and female figures, he moved art into a more modern interpretation. Klimt’s contribution to modern art was the blending of classical elements (derived from the Greeks and Egyptians) with a more modern aesthetic.
The Kiss exemplifies his style, depicting a passionate embrace with a rich, golden design. You are invited to be part of this stimulating presentation on an interesting artist and the volatile times of the early 20th century. Are there parallels for today?
Membership in the SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild is only $25 per year and includes monthly meetings, open studio, non-critique sessions, Art Salon discussions, opportunities to exhibit and sell your work, and so much more. Guild members also enjoy a discount on class fees. Visit www.saddlebrookefinearts.org for details.
Desert Ladies, by Renee Pearson
Artist Display at Long Realty
Jenni Long
Long Realty Golder Ranch has forged a partnership with the SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild to promote the talented artists of SaddleBrooke. The current display features the watercolor art of Karen Brungardt, Renee Pearson, and Kay Sullivan
Renee Pearson
Renee Pearson has always loved to paint in watercolor. Her subject matter is close-up florals, southwest-style florals, and still life paintings. She layers the watercolor to achieve the wonderful glow that we see in her paintings. Renee has her Bachelor of Fine Arts from California State Hayward and has won many awards in California, New Mexico, and Arizona.
Renee has her Signature Status from both the New Mexico Watercolor Society and the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild.
Kay Sullivan
After escaping the frenetic work world of Silicon Valley 24 years ago, Kay finally had time to learn about watercolor, a medium which she fell in love with 40 years ago, long before becoming an artist. She took her first drawing class, sponsored by the SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild, in 2001. Now, after many classes, she enjoys painting fearlessly. She loves to paint watercolor pet portraits but likes to balance that with painting architecture, landscapes, florals, and abstract experimental works using collage and acrylic mediums.
Kay has served on the board of the SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild, the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild, and is currently the president of the SaddleBrooke Nature Club.
Karen Brungardt
Karen received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1974 from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa. Karen moved to Kansas City, Mo., in 1975 and applied to the University of Missouri in Kansas City in 1977 to attend the Masters of Art program. She was accepted and did one year toward her master’s degree in art. She then decided to go to medical school instead—that paid better than being a starving artist. Karen received her D.O. degree in 1985 from the Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine, interned at Lakeside Hospital, and then moved to Wyoming in 1986 where she was in family practice for 16 years.
In college, Karen’s art interests were in oil painting, etchings, and pencil drawings. While in family practice, she started taking watercolor classes, and she fell in love with that medium.
After retirement, she and her husband Larry moved to SaddleBrooke, Ariz., in 2002. Since then, she has concentrated on painting in watercolors and teaching Beginning Watercolor to students. She is the past president of the SaddleBrooke Fine Arts Guild and is also involved with the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild. She shows her work in the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild gallery on Broadway, in the Absolutely Art Gallery in Catalina, Ariz., and also in SaddleBrooke.
Not only has she attained Signature Member status with the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild, but she’s also earned the Saguaro Fellow level, the highest level of achievement available in the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild.
You can view the work of these fine artists at Long Realty Golder Ranch located in the Bashas’ Shopping Center. The opening hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.