Penny Otwell

Penny Otwell's paintings reveal a colorful, rhythmic, and expressionistic response to the landscape.  She has been called “a colorist,” but she refrains from categorizing her work.  She is best known for her mountain paintings of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, but also for her whimsical wildlife-with-attitude paintings.  Her latest works include collage and applied Japanese Origami papers.

Otwell has lived, hiked, and painted in the Sierra for many years.  In the winter months she can be seen painting outdoors in the Great Central Valley and along the Mendocino coast of California.  Spring and summer find her plein air painting in Yosemite Valley, the Eastern Sierra, and Yosemite’s High Country.

Her work has received numerous awards, and is widely collected.  Her corporate collectors include Patagonia, Inc. and Delaware North Services, Inc.

Teaching for several well-known Yosemite organizations is a focus of the artist, and she also leads guided hikes in Yosemite.  During the school year Otwell volunteers at the local schools for grades two through twelve.

In the artist's words; 

"Painting is a lively and engaged act that I practice almost every day.  Even when driving down to the Central Valley I usually see something I want to sketch or photograph as a painting idea. Sometimes I paint off the back of my pick-up.  There is beauty everywhere.

I’m an oil painter who has turned to acrylics because of so many combinations of mediums.  I also have had an adventurous exploration with collage only possible with acrylics and I love juicy thick acrylic colors.  Using thin glazes has brought a richness and depth to my work.   Endless possibilities abound with plastic paint!

I also do plein air watercolors or paint ideas in my mind – usually beautiful places I have hiked in and remembered.  I honor my connection with nature through focused observation and celebrate a love of natural forms with making a painting!"