Where to start? Try these 12 artists

1. Christopher Wayne Allwine

Where: Festival of Arts

Christopher Wayne Allwine’s photographs have been shown at Art-A-Fair and the Sawdust Art Festival, but this is his first time at the Festival of Arts.

His series of “light paintings” are nighttime landscape photographs punctuated with touches of light. One series shows sleek old cars with bright spots, one in the headlights, another on the tires. A third is of a metro bus with a lighted destination sign on the front. The atmospheric effect comes from multiple exposures and other manipulations in a digital darkroom.

“Working at night offers endless creative opportunities, especially when it involves painting with light,” Allwine said.

He told Arts and Entertainment, a Laguna Beach cultural events blog, that his tools include small lighting items — pocket-sized flashlights, gelled strobes, glow sticks and LED pens — to create the visual effects in his photos.

Allwine’s mother is an animation film artist who worked on the original “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” films. His late father, Wayne, was the voice of Mickey Mouse for more than 30 years.

Info: Allwinephotography.com

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2. Judith Baer

Where: Art-A-Fair

Judith Baer’s watercolors are accompanied by a rack of light, dreamy dusters in vivid colors.

“The fabric is silk chiffon,” Baer said. She uses stretcher bars to create fabric canvasses and paints abstract designs on them with silk dye.

“The fabric is steam-set for two hours,” Baer said. Then she cuts and hand-stitches the pieces to assemble the garment.

Info: judithbaerarttowear.com

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3. Bill Darnall

Where: Sawdust Art Festival

Across from the pottery demonstration area is a booth featuring Bill Darnall’s pots, coffee cups, saucers and plates.

His ceramics continue the practical-use pottery tradition of the Sawdust festival.

Darnall started selling his pottery at the festival in 1973. He later spent 10 years as the ceramics teacher at Laguna Beach High School. After he retired, he went back to making ceramics for fun. His former customers and other exhibitors welcomed him back.

“It was so crazy good,” he said. “I was selling a lot, so my wife said, ‘You’d better get back in.’”

Darnall’s years of experience and teaching have buoyed him to a higher level of artistry. He recently opened a new studio.

“I’m as good as I have ever been,” he said. “So I’m back in the show.”

Info: Darnallceramics.com

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4. Cherril Doty

Where: Sawdust Art Festival

The leggy birds lure you in. The jaunty, chubby birds made of clay are covered with different colors of collage paper and mounted on long wire legs to a base of old barn wood. They have long beaks and big feet, and each has a unique expression.

“People will line them up and look at each one.” Doty said. “It’s fun to see the different faces. One of the birds will speak to them.”

Doty teaches art classes on Wednesday nights, but she doesn’t show people how to build the birds.

“Each bird takes several days,” she said.

Info: cherrildoty.com

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5. Donald Earhart

Where: Art-A-Fair

A photographer for 50 years, Donald Earhart started experimenting. Instead of putting photo images on photo paper, he started using sheets of aluminum in his ink-jet printer. A special coating helps seal the image.

The result is a glossy picture that changes color in different light. Pastel colors can glow in the light. Some of his landscapes can change from a daytime scene to nighttime, depending on the room light.

He calls them Alumages.

This summer, he has several new aluminum landscapes. His shot of the Eiffel Tower is also on display.

“It is my best seller,” Earhart said.

Info: dmephotography.com

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6. Carol Heiman-Greene

Where: Art-A-Fair

Carol Heiman-Greene paints wildlife the same way the Dutch masters painted portraits and slice-of-life scenes in the 17th century. Multiple layers of brush strokes gave the works a depth and gleam.

Heiman-Greene says she uses the same technique in her paintings of bears, birds, coyotes and cougars. It gives her work an interesting glaze.

One of her most popular works features a trio of wolf clubs baying in the fading day. Are they calling for their mother? Are they singing to the moon?

Another favorite is a portrait of a black bear cub.

“The cub was one of a pair of twins in Sequoia National Park,” she said. “The ranger named her Rosie.”

Info: Greenart.com

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7. Geri Medway

Where: Festival of Arts

Geri Medway uses watercolors and layers of glaze to create complex yet transparent portraits of nature, from swiftly running streams to a single leaf fallen from a tree. The effect is a light, floating landscape.

The layers “achieve a richness, vibrancy and glow that enables the light to pass through the many layers of color and bounces back off the archival cotton paper at the viewer’s eye — creating that sparkle and glow,” Medway wrote on her website.

Info: gerimedway.com

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8. September McGee

Where: Sawdust Art Festival

September McGee has shown her paintings at Sawdust for 22 years. Last year, she was in Maryland, where she chose the works to display here this summer.

“I was always a realistic painter, but I moved into impressionism and abstract,” she said. “It was easier and it was fun. I could make things up as I painted.”

The liberated style has resulted in several groups of paintings. At the forefront is a series of rain-at-the-beach pictures, which she started in 2007. A lone figure walks along the shore of a local beach on long skinny legs, sheltered by a red umbrella.

“I love color, and red is what I use the most,” McGee said.

She uses various types of canvases and works with oils, pastels and watercolors. Look for her mono prints, which are made by painting the top of a piece of glass and then pressing paper on it to transfer the image. A second pressing on the same glass results in a fainter picture, which she calls a ghost image.

McGee has a new book of paintings with inspirational messages called “Love Is My Favorite Color.”

Info: SeptemberMcGee.com

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9. George McGhee

Where: Art-A-Fair

George McGhee started painting 50 years ago.

“I started with prehistoric creatures, dinosaurs,” he said. “Then I moved to whales and dolphins and other marine life.”

Marine life is still popular with his customers, and his website is named for his popular subjects.

But a vacation in Hawaii 20 years ago inspired him to add landscapes to his art: pristine tropical scenes. Part reality, part fantasy, the details of lush trees, waterfalls and bright flowers induce a feeling of relaxation.

“I like to tell a story about what I see,” McGhee said.

Info: finewhaleart.com

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10. Laura Seeley

Where: Art-A-Fair

The walls of Laura Seeley’s booth at Art-A-Fair are covered with whimsical acrylic portraits of candy cane-striped cats, yellow spotted dogs and the like, but what stands out are the apparent feelings you see on their faces. Curious, happy, expectant, sad, mischievous, embarrassed, loving. Human feelings.

“I put more white in their eyes so they seem a little more human,” Seeley said. “It’s a playful style.”

Seeley is the author and illustrator of two children’s books. She also paints pet portraits on commission.

“Pet owners usually want a likeness of their pet,” Seeley said. “They send me their favorite pictures. I use those to create it. And I try to put something personal in each one.”

Info: bestfriendsartgallery.com

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11. Lilia Venier

Where: Art-A-Fair

There is unbridled fun in the colorful ceramic constructions of Lilia Venier, who has a unique way of painting faces and symbols from flying hearts to lipsticked faces on everything from cactus sculptures to madcap vases and boxes.

“It is so much fun to do these,” said Venier, who fires her colorful pottery in a low fire to retain the vivid color of paint.

Info: Liliavenierceramics.com

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12. Sue Winner

Where: Sawdust Art Festival

Mark and Sue Winner, husband and wife, share a booth that features his deeply cobalt-colored ceramic bowls and vases and her paintings of cats and geishas on canvas. Sue Winner also has turned bolts of Japanese traditional wrapping cloth — furoshiki — and vintage crepe scarves into jackets and tops. She also does a limited run of hand-painted T-shirts.

Amazingly, she has turned a tacky red and white Canada souvenir scarf into a classy jacket.

“I honor the material and make it into the same shape,” Winner said, showing a visitor the tunic she made from lace curtains combined with a lace tablecloth.

She added: “I like to recycle. I’m always looking for fresh things to do, Otherwise, I get bored.”

Her new collection of leather belts uses old outdoor faucet handles as buckles. She calls them Turn-ons.

Info: art_pipwin@yahoo.com