Monterey Herald Article, March 25, 2023

Local artist paints what comes naturally

By LISA CRAWFORD WATSON | newsroom@montereyherald.com |

PUBLISHED: March 24, 2023 at 8:21 a.m. | UPDATED: March 24, 2023 at 2:41 p.m.

Karen McNeely stands beneath a red market umbrella, arranging a profusion of flowers, fruits, and vegetables at the weekly Carmel-by-the-Sea and Carmel Valley farmers markets. Her produce actually is a colorful collection of greeting cards and stickers, original watercolor images the Monterey artist taught herself to paint.

When the pandemic put the world on pause, McNeely pulled out her watercolors and set a personal goal to paint a different fruit or vegetable every single day, starting with one of the more painterly fruits, a mango. Although she ran out of subjects well before the world resumed some level of in-person engagement, McNeely had created a cornucopia of fine art fruits and vegetables.

McNeely’s passion for artistic expression emerged early, and she was always drawing or doodling. Her favorite gift each year was a ream of white paper, and she couldn’t wait to fill it with color. Although she took art classes throughout high school, and she investigated a roster of renowned art schools to follow, she ended up pursuing a path that seemed more profitable to her parents and graduated from Florida State with a degree in hospitality administration. Perhaps ironically, she now uses all that administrative training to structure her art business.

Another bend in the road took McNeely into academics, working for Carmel River School, Carmel Middle School and Santa Catalina where, among other duties, she invested her creative energies in designing and making bulletin boards for the schools. Having been taught hand-piecing and quilting by her mother, she passed her skills onto students, who worked together to make quilts, sold at school fundraisers.

Meanwhile, she poured her artistic sensibilities into her family, beautifully decorating their home, and creating fine-art journals chronicling her son’s and daughter’s lives, completing nearly 50 artful albums.

It wasn’t until McNeely’s sister gave her a Winsor & Newton watercolor palette ─ an unforgiving but painterly medium ─ and the pandemic put her life on hold, that she began painting in earnest.

“This was truly the first time in my life when I felt I could follow a creative path of my own,” she said. “I had time to learn from Skillshare, an online training program that offers tutorial programs in the arts, as well as YouTube videos. I felt the freedom and creativity to paint and put my paintings on Instagram.”

McNeely, who is passionate about farmers markets and the healthy living they foster, found the bounty of the local markets her inspiration for painting. And now she hopes for the reverse, that her produce paintings both represent and inspire a healthy approach to life.

“There is no place I’d rather spend my time,” she said, “than at a farmers market. When not hosting my own booth, I shop there in the morning, photographing the produce, and then return home to cook what I bought and paint. The colors of the fruits and vegetables really bring me joy and inspiration.”

Love letters to nature

A complete foody, who loves to cook and eat what comes from the ground, McNeely has always been drawn to paint the things we grow. Inspired by the shape, the shine, and the deep purple of an eggplant, the red of a radish just pulled from the earth with dirt still dusting the edges, and the promise of a sunflower lifting its face into the light, she can’t think of anything she’d rather paint.

“During the early days of the pandemic,” she said, “my art seemed like a necessary tool for survival. It was a beautiful outlet for me, which led me to take more classes in calligraphy and painting on Skillshare, and find and follow other artists on Instagram. My favorite artist is Ohn Mar Win from the UK. She has a very loose style of watercolor painting and is an excellent instructor.”

McNeely also trained under artist Rosalie Haizlett, who instructed her to become more aware of her natural surroundings and notice the beauty in small things, like the shape and structure of a mushroom, the texture and color of moss, the intricacies of an insect.

During the summer of 2020, after completing several of Win’s online watercolor classes, McNeely decided to paint watercolor flower card sets and sell them on Instagram. The support and success she found among followers who bought her cards encouraged her to continue developing her business. Today, using watercolors and ink, she paints images of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, creating an evocative intricacy and color saturation in her work. From her originals, she prints card sets to sell at the farmers markets and online at www.kcmstudioink.com.

Today, in addition to the farmers markets, McNeely sells her cards at Sugar Farms Marketplace in the Carmel Plaza, as well as Happy Girl Kitchen in Pacific Grove, Elroy’s Fine Foods and Luminata Books & Gifts in Monterey, Earthbound Farm, Spencer’s Stationery, and Cornucopia in Carmel, and at Alma del Mar in Sand City.

“I really enjoy the interaction with people who show interest in me and in my cards,” she said. “I like sharing my story and hearing theirs, an exchange generated by looking at my art. I am inspired to continue to share my work through local markets, and to paint often. And my new goal is to make all my cards sustainable by getting away from the plastic cards that protect them.”

Actually, she has additional goals and ideas for her artistry, and she’s almost ready to share them. So stay tuned.