Towers and Stars, oil on canvas, 24 x 20, $400.

The key to Linda Stonestreet's stylistic landscapes is in her use of palette knives instead of brushes.

“When I use a palette knife, I can apply thicker paint." Says Linda, “I can put one color on top of another and have streaks of the bottom color show thru. I can also soften colors or make them bold. I find it to be more versatile for my style than a paint brush. Also easier to clean!”

Palette knives used by Linda Stonestreet.

Linda follows a long line of oil painters using palette knives to convey emphatic raw texture to the canvas. A knife-thickened splat of paint can be manipulated into expressive strokes, swirls, and twists to suggest whatever the artist has in mind and fingers to do.

The 19th century explorers of paint and light: Courbet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, and Constable, to name a few, all found distinctive ways of using knives to create vigorous images and raw movement on canvas.

Crystals Rising, oil on canvas, 24 x 20, $300.

Lindas’s Galaxy painting reflects a previous series of paintings, for which she used various pouring methods of paint to create her special effects. The painting’s large size adds to the illusion of space, though its impact on the viewer is best when seen on a wall. Linda’s directed drops of paint on dark canvas conveying stars and planets in a vast cosmos is almost romantic in its vision. Living somewhere in there ain’t half bad.

Galaxy, oil on canvas, 4' x 4', $800.

A native West Virginian, Linda is well known in the Charleston art scene and a longtime active member of several arts groups. She is a board member of Allied Artists of West Virginia, a member of Tri-State Artists, a juried Tamarack artist, and a member of Gallery Eleven in Charleston WV. Her work has been shown throughout West Virginia and in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio.

A reception to celebrate Linda’s new works is scheduled for Friday, Oct 9, from 4-7 PM at Gallery Eleven, 205 W. Washington St. in Charleston. Join us for wine, food, and music while you browse among the Gallery’s current collection of fine art and crafts for sale. October is the perfect time to take advantage of the Gallery’s layaway plan to buy that rare gift for someone special in your life.