Chris Rapa Fine Art

04/04/2026

04/03/2026

I bought the prettiest double tulips at Trader Joe's, my favorite place to buy flowers. is there anything better than spending the day in the studio, painting a collection of pretty little things while spring does it thing?!!! "A Few of my Favorite Things" oil, 16 x 20.

04/01/2026

Hello Friends! Thanks so much To American Women Artists for including my little "Porch Roses" in the 2026 Juried Online Show. (9 x 12, oil.) I am so appreciative of the work this organization does to recognize and promote women artists. I can't wait for the symposium in Nashville in a few weeks! And a little plug for my upcoming class...if you like this kind of painting, and want to learn more, I'll be sharing all my tips and techniques in "Light and Loose" an online class offered Wednesdays in May through Winslow Art Center.

03/12/2026

Hello friends! My new online class is live @ Winslow Art Center. I am delighted to be teaching about light, painting loose, and florals--just a few of my favorite things! Classes run live Wednesdays through May, but as always, our recorded and available for access anytime. This will be fun and packed full of ideas, techniques, and of course, beautiful, beautiful florals.

https://winslowartcenter.com/product/chris-rapa-light-and-loose-online-wednesdays-may-6-27-2026/

11/16/2025

Final day of Waterfowl! I'll be at the Frampton building at the corners of Harrison and Goldsboro in Easton with my work until 4 PM today. It's been an amazing festival, thank you so much to the volunteers and collectors!

11/02/2025

The color Harmony hacks workshop at Academy Art Museum is a wrap. Thanks so much to the museum staff for all of their help and for providing a lovely room for us to work in. We started with inspiration pieces with beautiful colors, created color keys, learned to mix those colors, and finally, adapt them to our paintings.

My demo painting incorporated colors inspired by a skein of yarn I bought in Ireland. I pulled colors from the variegated yarn, created a color key, (with little swatches that you can see taped to my easel) and used those colors to create a painting from my reference photo.

My pallete mixing colors for the day were:

titanium white,
cadmium yellow lemon,
cadmium yellow medium,
Cadmium red,
quinacridone rose,
Pthalo blue,
ultramarine blue

My next workshop is Saturday and Sunday, November 22-23, Adventures in Cold Wax. This is always a very popular workshop and so fun, looking forward to seeing some of you there.

Have a beautiful, amazing and lovely fall weekend everyone!!!

11/02/2025

Swain's Lock was amazing. Painted las Saturday with Washington Society of landscape painters. Posted this finished painting, along with pictures only to find that it looked completely different on Instagram than on my phone. Deleted that post and I am trying again starting with a less saturated photo . I've asked around, several people say that Instagram changes the photo when it is uploaded. Anybody know about this? The colors in this painting are bright and saturated, but they became very garish when I uploaded the picture, it's like the intensity and brilliance were crazy boosted. Hoping it is better this . Any thoughts about this anyone? Would love to know how to make it stop.

10/29/2025

One for sorrow, two for Joy, three for girls, four for boys, five for Silver, six for gold, seven for secrets never to be told.

Turns out, secrets can be not so good for you. If you are carrying something heavy my friend, lay it down.

Available at The Artists' Gallery in Ellicott City

10/26/2025

Plein air with Washington Society of Landscape Painters this morning at Swains Lock. It was a spectacular day to be out painting!
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