Claudia Brookes

I have been a professional artist for the past 25 years. I taught private watercolor classes during much of that period, although oil is now my primary medium. Art is my second career, after many years spent as a medical publisher in Baltimore. For all my adult life I have lived in Maryland, where I married, raised a family, and worked. I grew up near Boston and was privileged to have ready access to art materials and museums as well as plenty of encouragement in my artistic pursuits from my family.

I call myself an American Impressionist. My interest in plein air (outdoors, on location) painting has greatly influenced my work. I prefer a wet-on-wet, alla prima style of laying on paint whether I am outdoors or in the studio, and treasure the beauty of visible brushstrokes. I love the immediacy and freshness of paintings created on location as well as the challenge of capturing the particular lighting effect of an exact time and place.

My chief influences are the plein air painters of Cape Ann, MA, Cos Cob, CT, and New Hope, PA, as well as the early 20th Century California outdoor painters. I am a veteran of more than 50 juried plein air competitions held across the country and wherever I travel, I paint. And always, the perfect light is waiting.

I am represented by the following galleries: Argosy Gallery, Bar Harbor, ME; Landmark Gallery, Kennebunkport, ME, and Pink Papaya, Cruz Bay, St. John, USVI.