President of the KRVAA Buffalo Folsom with first place winning artist Peter Buchan. Photos by Catherine Stachowiak
The Kern River Valley Art Association held its monthly Second Saturday reception with a Harvest theme this month.
Daisy Torres was featured Artist of the Month. She told the Kern Valley Sun about her style of creativity. Torres likes to incorporate animals and nature in all of her work. She said, “The reason why I paint women is because I’m a woman. And I love nature. It makes me feel peaceful.”
Her painting based on the French Fire evokes intense emotion. Creating the piece was a healing experience for Torres. She said, “In the French Fire we got evacuated. We were at the (evacuation) center for two weeks. So the whole time I’m worrying and thinking about my house. The whole time I was just thinking I want to go back home.” The character in her painting, inspired by the incident, is thinking about those issues and worrying. Torres said, “I also kind of positioned her like Jesus, how Jesus has the heart glowing.”
Torres has only been painting for about eight years. She used to mostly draw. However in 2017 she was introduced to oil painting. Afterwards she fell in love with painting and started to enjoy painting humans. Torres often uses mixed media. So she will use acrylics and then adds oil paint to the painting. In some of her pieces she does a collage underneath and then paints over the collage.
Torres said that some of her artwork is currently showing at the Nanny Goat Gallery in Petaluma, California.
Torres came from Los Angeles County, and loves the nature in this area. She chooses to do her art here and make this valley her home because nature uplifts her. “I guess most of my artwork has to do with trying to make people feel positive when they see it. And it’s also, when you walk outside, nature makes you feel really good.”
Torres said she believed she was the worst painter in her whole painting class. She said, “Mine was not the best but I decided to continue on painting people until I got better.”
Torres now provides paint parties and oil painting classes most often at the KRVAA’s Art and Community Center. She will be teaching a class on acrylic paining at the Art and Community Center from 2pm to 5pm, September 21 and several other classes during the month of September. Please see the KRVAA calendar at https://www.krvaa.org/events-and-classes for an array of other opportunities to learn various types of arts and crafts and enjoy community camaraderie.
Winners in the contest that night included for First Place artist Peter Buchan for his painting, “Dawn Harvest.” The Second Place winner that evening was artist Patty Kelly for the piece called, “Chicken Harvest.” The Third Place winner that evening was Sarah Nystrom for the piece titled, “Pick Me.” Artist Joanne Brown won an Honorable Mention for the creation titled, “Jungle Harvest.”
