PROFILE : Her Own Rainbow : Gloria Todd Jones’ sentimental paintings of her childhood in the South will be shown at Danica House starting Sept. 19.

Among gated communities within commuting distance of Los Angeles, Sherwood Village in Westlake--replete with the mock-mountainous Sherwood Lake and village atmosphere--is one of the more meticulous, fascinating illusions around.

For anyone who has seen Gloria Todd Jones’ various artworks in Ventura County, finding her at work in her sky-lit home studio in Sherwood Village might be a bit of a shock, since Jones specializes in nostalgic, unabashedly sentimental portrayals of the African-American life she knew growing up in the South.

She also paints religious scenes, landscapes (which might be Mexico, Italy or Thousand Oaks) and evocative musical portraits such as her popular “Jazzberry,” an ambiguous image of the Monterey Jazz Festival--one of many spots where her posters do a brisk business.

In her kitchen overlooking the rambling golf course, Jones has upped the illusionistic ante. On one wall she has painted a mural--a trompe l’oeil picture-window view of yonder golf course with a mansion on a grassy hill in the distance.

“When we first moved here about six years ago, this was the last house on Sherwood,” Jones said, walking out on the sun deck. “It was a dirt road that ended at our driveway. This was just a field, where they used to film ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and ‘Dukes of Hazzard.’ It was just wild, with coyotes.”

Things change. Now, construction of cookie-cutter mansions is going full-speed ahead.

“It’s kind of fun watching this. . . . When people come out here, I always tell them, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’ ”

No one would accuse Jones of being too detached or intellectual in her work. The colors are warm, the realism homey, the end result the very picture of accessibility. You can get a good look at her work when she shows 30-odd pieces in a one-woman show at the Danica House in Westlake, which opens Sept. 19.

In the past several years, Jones has found rich outlets for her work outside of the traditional art gallery realm, in the poster trade and greeting card world. Her husband, Chet, is a retired private investigator who hustles her art and recently introduced her art to several galleries on military bases.

And this past summer, Jones went Hollywood. She was one of eight artists--the only female--in a show at Universal Studios to benefit the downtown L. A. Mission. With connections made through that show, Jones then showed her work at the Hollywood Presbyterian Church and the Hollywood Bowl this summer.

Strewn around the coffee table in the living room are a series of greeting cards, Jones’ latest peripheral market. Mighty Hallmark cards, in a move toward racial parity, has commissioned Jones to create a line of Christmas cards.

Jones has created 10 Yuletide images, including that of a black Santa, a black drummer boy and a Nativity scene with black subjects.

“They’ve just come out with an African-American line,” Jones said. “We have an agreement, and they’re selling like hot cakes. We have the cards, matching towels and the matching lithograph. We’re pretty excited that Hallmark is finally representing a black artist. They decided that they have to change for the sake of change.”

As shamelessly populist-Rockwellian as Jones’ art is, she has an ulterior motive. She often depicts blacks in societal quarters normally reserved for white archetypes. Her new lithograph series, “Sisters at the Opera,” finds elegantly bedecked black women in a stereotypically lily-white social milieu.

“Westlake Tea” is a self-portrait, with hers the only ebony face in a showing of local white socialites. She painted the intriguing “100 Black Men,” a two-paneled depiction of black men on a beach, just after the Los Angeles riots, as a gesture of hope and reconciliation.

Born in Jackson, Ala., Jones played piano as a child, but she was soon following a penchant for painting.

“I used to use my piano as an easel instead of working on my piano lessons.”

She came to California in 1971, after high school, to attend Cal State Dominguez Hills. There she met her husband, with whom she had a daughter, Tamara, now 12. Jones paints a portrait of Tamara every couple of years.

While at Dominguez Hills, Jones won a scholarship to study in Florence, Italy, and she has since traveled the globe for art, business and pleasure. And combinations thereof.

“I’ve been fortunate all my life,” she said, “because I always knew I wanted to be an artist. But the opportunity to go to Italy just put the icing on the cake.”

One of the best of Jones’ recent paintings has a regional buzz to it.

“The Strawberry Pickers” is a picturesque image of female farm workers against the green fields in Oxnard. The painting captures a fetching, festive quality of stillness.

“I went through Oxnard last summer and saw these women walking out of the field with these kerchiefs on their mouths. All these wonderful colors that they were wearing intrigued me. I said to myself, ‘I’ve got to paint that picture.’ So I remembered exactly how they were walking out, and how they carried the baskets of strawberries.”

As we walked through the Jones house--which serves as an ad-hoc gallery for her work--the artist gestured toward a wall with newspaper clippings and photos, grinning. “My wall of fame, I call it.” We saw portraits of the artist hobnobbing with clients and celebrities, including Donna Summer, a Westlake neighbor.

Jones said Summer is a “friend, who helps me promote my work a lot. I taught her how to paint. This is one of her paintings.” She pointed to a painting on one wall, markedly more abstract that Jones’ work.

“That’s probably the only one in the house that isn’t mine. She said it was an abstract impression of Yoko Ono.” Needless to say, Jones is a more conservative artist than Summer or Ono.

One of Jones’ more effective nostalgic pieces is “St. Union Sunday,” seen at the Pacific Rim Gallery in downtown Ventura last year. The painting depicts a congregation from the back of what looks like a Southern black church.

“That’s me,” Jones said with a grin, “the little girl in the back row, with the sketch pad and pencil.”

The path from Jackson, Ala., to Sherwood Village is a long one, with a neatly painted rainbow at the end.

* WHERE AND WHEN

Gloria Todd Jones paintings, Sept. 19 through November at Danica House, 3835 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Westlake. For more information call 494-7133. Also on Sept. 20, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Studio Gallery in Oxnard. For more information call 985-1546.

UP CLOSE / GLORIA TODD JONES

On dealing predominantly with black subjects in her work: “Successful artists put themselves in their paintings. That’s where the success comes from, in any art. Doing that, I show a different side to other people too.”

On the subject of subjects: “I have a photographic memory of paintings I want to paint. I could probably paint a painting every day for the rest of my life and still have ideas.”

On her taste for variety in her work: “I guess I want my work to appeal to the masses, especially if I enjoy doing it. I don’t want to limit myself. I’ve done a little bit of everything.”