Art Workshops

Join us at the gallery for two hands‑on workshops led by artists from the exhibition. We’re hosting a watercolor session and an oil‑painting session, so you can pick the experience that speaks to you, or come to both and make it a whole creative experience.

 Artist Bios:

Yvette Alvarado

  • Yvette Alvarado specializes in fine art. Her medium is watercolor and acrylic. She does plein air pieces of artwork. Plein air is a French term meaning “Outside,” painting perfect for the southern California climate. She first became interested in art as a little girl. She loved to color in coloring books all the time. Her parents enrolled her in an after-school art class. She saw how much fun it was to do art and express what she saw and felt. Every chance she gets when traveling, she visits art museums and science museums.

Julie Bradbury-Bennett

  • As a teenager, Julie had the good fortune to take oil painting classes in tonal realism with Alan Albert Martin (1923-1989 in Eltham, AU). Alan was a wonderful artist, an unassuming, methodical teacher, conveying with great clarity and simplicity the fundamentals of atelier-style portraiture. Growing up on the rural outskirts of Melbourne, AU, Julie was surrounded by dry, steep, rocky hills of re-growth eucalypti and scattered tailings from the late 1800s Victorian gold rush era. There were the cows, chickens, and gardens to tend. There were also distant views of mountains to the east, ever-changing with the constant flux in weather. The most wonderful array of wildflowers, lichen, and moss appeared magically after the winter rains. The imprint of that world has stayed, long after it and she are no longer there. It is that feeling of wonder, which tries to reveal itself each time she paints. Now residing in San Diego, the arid mountains and blue skies of East County seem to have brought her full circle. After 36 years in research, development, and manufacturing, she now paints full-time.

Susan Dearmond

  • Art is where Susan has always found her joy! She turned that into a serious pursuit of fine art in 2007. Plein air painting takes her back to memories of trekking through the woods on family outings or time with her grandmother tending the garden, irises, and lilacs. When she gets out into the woods or the wild, it feels like coming home. Painting on location in the Southwest is especially awe-inspiring to her, to stand before God’s handiwork on a grand scale. Susan hopes that her paintings spark that same joy and awe in you!

Carmelita Molina

  • Carmelita is a Filipino/American artist residing in San Diego, California. She has participated in the following shows:1987 Del Mar Fair (Student Showcase) 1994 San Diego, Downtown Gallery (Group Exhibition) San Diego CA, 1995 Watercolor Society (Group Exhibition) San Diego CA, 1998 Ablom Gallery (Consignment) Chula Vista CA, 2007 Radisson Hotel (All Artist Display) Rochester MN, 2008 SEMVA Art Gallery (Consignment) Rochester MN, 2009 Mission Beach Artist Market San Diego CA, 2023 Cathy Hibbard (Commission) San Diego CA, 2023 San Diego County Fair, Art Exhibition Del Mar CA, 2024 Bonita Museum and Cultural Center (Group Exhibition) Bonita CA, 2024 San Diego County Fair, Plein Air Competition Del Mar CA and the 2025 Bonita Museum And Cultural Center (Group Exhibition) Bonita CA. She is a member of the La Jolla Art Association, Oceanside Museum of Art, and San Diego Plein Air Painters MeetUp Group. Furthermore, she studied at San Diego City College, Southwestern College, Chula Vista High School, and the Performing Arts Center. She can be contacted through email: cb22molina@yahoo.com

Lisa Passin

There are moments in our lives; there are moments in a day when we seem to see beyond the usual. These are our moments of greatest happiness and wisdom. Robert Henri.

  • From a young age, Lisa found objects—a shell, leaves, fabric—all subjects for the creation of some art form. She drew them, made a collage, and sewed them. She remembers lying in the grass watching clouds drift by, trees bending in the wind, the way waves crash to the shore and retreat. All in preparation of her dream: to record the beauty of our world and the emotion it evoked. Initially, life circumstances did not allow her to follow an art career. Her first career was as an intensive care nurse. It was there that she learned how tenuous life can be and how important it is to support one another. She was blessed with lifelong friends during this time. She would go home after a 12-hour shift and draw. It totally captivated, soothed, and gave her hope. She has lived and traveled in many places in the US and abroad. In each new circumstance and place, it was through art that she found community. It was with brush and paint that she recorded the colors, the nature, the people, and the culture. Her dreams came true. She has dedicated herself to the creation of art for the majority of her life. Thankful for this ongoing journey of learning, never “finished,” always exploring, Lisa has been fortunate to study with many artists and teachers who she considers “masters” of our time. At each stage, our mind opens and can receive more. She thanks these artists for their generosity and inspiration. So walk with her and her lifelong friend, whose name is Art. Listen, remember, and see with her this beautiful world we live in! Lisa is an avid supporter of the environment, especially our oceans.

Indu Ramkumar

  • Indu loves to paint, bringing to life the beauty of everyday objects around her. She is constantly searching for patterns, the juxtapositions of forms and shapes that create exciting compositions. Trees are an endless source of inspiration: the forms of the branches, the layers of leaves. She finds beauty in the old and worn, the gritty and abandoned objects. She is an avid experimenter and student of various media. She started young, drawing with chalk on the walls of her home as a child. Furthermore, she went on to watercolor and gouache, often using paint extruded directly from tubes. She graduated to oils and watercolors using the traditional technique. Recently she discovered encaustics, the ancient technique using colors suspended in beeswax as well as acrylics, a very modern medium. When it comes to colors, she likes to be experimental and adventurous. She comes from India, a land known for the intensity and vibrancy of its colors. She often starts with the color she sees but moves on to the impression of the colors she senses. Her love of experimentation often results in colors that are completely abstracted from reality but are driven by the composition of the work and the lively play between colors. Through her life’s journey across three continents, she has engaged with her surroundings through art. Drawing inspiration from the myriad of colors, variety, and richness of life in each country she has traveled to, she creates paintings that evoke a sense of longing, reflection, and visual excitement.

Vira Ustianska

  • Vira Ustianska, born in Zaporizhzhia in 1988, built her foundation in fine arts through years of study at local art schools and colleges before completing her degree in Easel Painting at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts. She began exhibiting in 2008 and went on to help establish the Drawing Studio in Zaporizhzhia, later opening her own studio, V‑ART. Her career included teaching design disciplines, participating in international plein air events, and showing work at major institutions such as the National Museum of Art in Zaporizhzhia. By 2021, she had earned recognition at “The Best Artist” Plein Air, receiving a medal for artistic achievement. After evacuating to Poland with her daughter in 2022, she continued exhibiting across Europe and created more than 100 works during her “Polish Period.” Later that year she arrived in the United States, taught at the Ukrainian School in San Diego, and began a new body of California landscape paintings inspired by the region’s natural beauty. Her ongoing “1000 Sunflowers” project remains a vital connection to her Ukrainian roots, now encompassing nearly 200 works, each carrying its own story. In America, Vira continues to study art through museums, books, and nature, while maintaining her deep love for traditional still life. Her floral and object‑based compositions capture fleeting moments of joy, childhood wonder, and the emotional weight of memory. She also creates vivid miniatures influenced by European realism, balancing accurate detail with expressive mood. Portraiture remains one of her most personal genres, especially her annual portraits of her daughter Vasylisa, which trace the stages of her growth and serve as an intimate dialogue between mother and child. Across landscapes, still life, miniatures, and portraits, Vira’s work blends realism with impressionistic energy, marked by her distinctive color sense and dynamic brushwork.

Artists’ Contact Info

Celebrating Light, Color and Form

This show includes the work of 9 local plein air artists-all members of the San Diego Plein Air Painters Meetup Group. The San Diego Plein Air Painters Meetup Group, started in 2008, continues to meet every Saturday morning, painting outdoors in various spaces around the city and county. San Diego is a plein air painter’s paradise. The atmospheric light in the fall, deep blue skies and snow in winter, grey summers, and bright drifting clouds in spring all add endless variety to the ocean bluffs, beaches, boats, rolling hills, mountains, forests, fields, cities, and towns.

Continuing to work outdoors in all seasons, we strive to unlock the secrets behind the subtle combinations of light, color, and form around us. The work on display includes many landscapes, both local and from further afield. The influence of outdoor observation on other subjects will be seen with the addition of some still life and/or figurative studies from each artist.

Artist/sYvette Alvarado | Julie Bradbury-Bennett | Susan De’Armond | Carmelita Molina | Lisa Passin | Indu Ramkumar | Vira UstianskaMediumAcrylic, Gouache, Oil, & watercolorShow DatesAugust 11, 2026 - August 24, 2026Reception DateSaturday, August 15, 2026Reception Time11:00 am - 4:00 pmReception LocationVillage Arts Outreach Gallery

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