Plein Air Liaison

Award-winning artist, Peggi Kroll-Roberts, was trained at Arizona State University and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.  Peggi worked as a fashion and advertising illustrator before making the transition into fine art. Using intense color and value

to accentuate her subject, she moved into fine art with a bold palette, a love for small paintings and a very loose style that achieves a lot with a few very energetic brush strokes. She prefers to suggest reality than render it.



Inspired by her children she paints beach scenes and other aspects of their lives. She also breaks away from the conventional still life by painting scenes of cosmetics and the occasional coffee cup or slab of butter. Peggi's work gives us a new appreciation of our own daily life.



As well as being a PAL instructor, she currently teaches still-life and figure workshops in other California locations, as well as several other locations across the country and abroad.

Peggi also works in many other media and will work with students who prefer to study with acrylic, watercolor, oil or gouache.

The Peggi & Ray Partnership

Peggi and Ray's workshops offer a wealth of knowledge of painting, generously and clearly given in each workshop. They employ several lesson plans to strengthen the individual artists’ skills. Many of these exercises have been passed on from earlier generations of artists and some lessons have been developed by Peggi and Ray.

Peggi and Ray have a combined 30 plus years experience in teaching workshops. They’ve also taught at many of the top representational art schools across the country and to many of the instructors teaching today.



Peggi works with students on learning to paint the figure within the landscape and in some workshops, where indicated, the still-life will be the subject matter. Whichever the subject matter, the focus is on improving drawing skills and seeing values and colors correctly and understanding their relationships to each other. There are always daily demonstrations emphasizing the big shapes and establishing their relationships correctly. This provides a springboard to adding additional information if the individual artist desires. Peggi's classes and workshops address design and technique in a manner in which the individual artist may express themselves in a personal way. The student experiences many specific assignments, which helps to "get to the point a little more quickly". Students end up covering a lot of canvas and "learning through earnest mileage". Students receive plenty of one-on-one instruction and individual demonstrations as needed.

Ray works with students on developing sketches that can then be used for creating a studio painting. Ray will demonstrate his approach to gathering all pertinent aspects in the field respective to the finished painting; scouting, anticipating, painting quick color sketches, pre-mixing, editing, photo-referencing, and ultimately designing a studio painting.



Ray demonstrates and explains all facets; creating field sketches, thinking design (light and dark shapes), drawing with accuracy, working on values, relating color temperature and intensity, creating quick sketches, shooting good reference, and keeping track of all this! Ray explains, "My approach is to make a visual statement, a complete thought in paint. Successful studio painting requires an idea with a totality, an iconograph, if you will, of your subject with accurate color and value, supporting elements." Ray walks students through their idea and assists them with their approach and strategy.



Some classes and workshops offered by Plein Air Liason will also give the student the opportunity to paint coastal beach scenes. Ray's coastal classes and workshops will focus on what to look for when painting water, white water, reflections, and waves. With its constant movement, it can be mesmerizing. You will have a clearer understanding of how to paint water that looks translucent, reflective, and moving when shown what to look for with explanations and demonstrations. As with all of Ray's classes and workshops, there's a comprehensive approach to painting in general.



“I love the beach,” Peggi says. “All ethnicities are there, calling for different colors, ranging from raw ochre out of the tube to the light flesh of a fair-skinned redhead on vacation from Wisconsin.” The variety of flesh tones on the beach can be surprising, especially when the impact of clothing and reflected light is factored in. What color is flesh? Whatever I see,” Peggi says. “A green umbrella will give you green flesh. One Caucasian’s color can be very different from another one right next to her, and the shadow areas will have different hues. I try not to be too formulaic in choosing colors for flesh tones. I ask myself what I am seeing—what colors, how they relate to each other, and their values—and then I organize them the best I can. If one color and value next to another one is wrong, there is no question about it.”



Peggi's coastal classes and workshops emphasize painting the figure on the beach and understanding the relationships of the sand to the flesh, the reflected light to the shadows and the water to the sky.