Award-winning painter
Claudia L. Brookes is a resident of Maryland and a veteran plein air
competitor, traveling to many different locations each season to paint on
location in week-long juried painting events. With a long history of solo and
group exhibitions of her work since leaving a 30-year career in medical
publishing in 1998, she has never regretted becoming a professional fine
artist. Today her paintings hang in hundreds of private collections throughout
the USA and abroad. She has taught watercolor classes since 2004 to students at
all levels, emphasizing the wet-on-wet techniques for which she is best known.
Brookes was elected to Artist Member status of the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air
Painters Association (MAPAPA) in 2010 and has been a Signature Member of the
Baltimore Watercolor Society (BWS) since 2002. Her style of painting, chiefly
influenced by the plein air American Impressionists of the California, New
Hope, and Cape Ann schools, features visible, bold brushstrokes, strong edges,
a colorist's sensibility, and simplification of design. She often underlays her
oil paintings with a ground color of warm red to set up a pleasing vibration within the
paintings. She has painted horses and other "critters" all of her life, and
enjoys painting landscapes wherever she travels.