Depicting the landscape in oil

Light and color are plein-air artist Margot Lennartz’s inspirations.

The La Crescenta resident uses them in her oil paintings, especially one in which she has captured the brilliant oranges found in California poppies.

The piece is on display in her show, “California Style” continuing until June 1 at the Boddy House Gallery in Descanso Gardens.

“My favorite in the exhibit is a painting I painted at the poppy reserve in Lancaster in the Mojave Desert,” she said. “It’s titled ‘Desert Magic, Mojave Desert in Bloom.’”

She painted it so recently, it is still wet, she said.

Painting on location has its problems, she added. The day she drove out to the desert, it was an overcast day. And without sunlight the poppies won’t open, she said, so she worked on the composition of the landscape.

“The detail of the flowers I can put in from memory,” she said. “The layout of the composition is more important.”

The poppies in the foreground have more detail, which is then eliminated as she paints the mid-section and background, she said.

“The hardest part of painting is to paint as the subjects blur out, and painting the light,” she said. “Light treatment is my specialty. It is bringing the light into the area of the point of interest. I like to let light flow through painting into the distance.”

She paints from a multicolored palette, which, she said, allows her to choose quickly and selectively.

She loves the freedom of painting nature on location throughout Southern California.

“Plein air is instant gratification,” she said. “It’s exciting because it gets you out in nature. You are not confined to your studio. You are out in the open and have to accept the elements.”

Lennartz started plein-air painting 15 years ago after retiring as a physical therapist and raising her family. She studied the works of Early California Impressionists from the early 1900s.

She also teaches painting in her studio in La Crescenta.

“I still paint with her, said Trish Kertes of La Ca”ada Flintridge. “She’s a mentor of mine and now a colleague. I admire her work greatly.”

Kertes started painting as an adult, and said she wanted to become a painter without taking a lot of college classes.

“She not only guided me in how to paint but taught me the fundamentals of art and design,” Kertes said. “When you are an adult, you don’t have time to waste. That is what she is great at, explaining things in a way that makes sense.”

Kertes said Lennartz is primarily a colorist.

“Meaning that it is the color in the scene that attracts her to paint it and the way the light reflects on the color,” she said.

Lennartz uses exciting, expressive brush work when she paints, Kertes added. She picks up a thick dab of paint and applies it to the canvas directly and it creates a thick brush stroke that reflects the light.

Lennartz is also a shape-oriented painter, Kertes said.

“She paints the large shapes she sees in a landscape rather than focusing on minute detail and this gives her painting what I call a stained-glass look,” Kertes said. Lennartz will often do her drawing first in a red or red-orange or purple, then she will apply the paint within the shapes, which gives it the characteristic of stained-glass effect.

“It allows the color to show through the edges of trees and mountains and it imparts a special glow to the painting,” Kertes said.

Lennartz is also providing a record of the surrounding landscape for generations to come, she said. “I think her paintings will become a valuable asset as a record of what our area looked like today,” she said. “It’s important for posterity, so that people collecting her work will be able to pass these down to their families and they may be collected by libraries and museums, for future generations.”

WHAT: Margot Lennartz’s “California Style” and the work of three other artists ? Mary Jane Elgin of Pasadena, porcelain and stoneware; Louise Forbes of La Crescenta, wildlife in oils on maple panels; and Patricia Wiley of La Crescenta, “Bright, Beautiful Flowers” in watercolor.

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily until June 1

WHERE: Boddy House Gallery, Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Ca”ada Flintridge

ADMISSION: Free with gardens admission, which is $7; $5 for seniors and students; $2 for children 5 to 12, and free for members and children 5 and younger.