Landscape Painting with Karen Keeley to help beginner and expert painters hone craft

A new creative initiative will soon be empowering artists to capture the beauty of the local countryside.

Landscape Painting with Karen Keeley, from May 4 to June 1, will take artists out to the rivers, waterways, hills and rock formations of Dryandra.

There they will be given free rein to explore and document the environment before moving to a studio for four weeks of artistic development. They will be guided by Ms Keeley, an educator who grew up in Narrogin and has spent the past 30 years honing her craft.

She said that painting en plein air or “in the open air” helped to foster a particular style of Impressionist expression.

“It’s very different to working in a studio setting, you've got the natural light to start with and the light shifts very quickly. The French Impressionists were the first to do that and they had to work fast so that what they were looking at was an impression rather than painting in a sort of hyperrealist style.”

The event will culminate in a show at the Narrogin Exhibition Space later this year.