Lucinda ‘Cindy’ Howe has loved working with form and color from a young age.  Her need to create led her to gardening, travel and painting.  She has painted on location in Hawaii, the Caribbean, Europe and many locations around the USA including the beautiful desert southwest in Arizona and New Mexico.  Cindy’s paintings are bold and joyful.  Images inspired by gardens and landscapes around the world are expressed in blazing color. Complementary colors (opposites on the color wheel) create visual excitement, and loose application of paint allows some of the original drawing to show through.  Her painting style is influenced by Les Fauves (The Wild Beasts) of the early 20th century whose works emphasized painterly qualities and the use of deep, arbitrary color.  As Gauguin said, “It matters little whether the haystack is yellow or purple, we shall paint it red if we wish.”   For the May program, Cindy will talk about painting at Ghost Ranch and Taos, New Mexico with the Turquoise Eight, a group of artist friends who share a love of drawing and color. She will also give some practical tips for working on location, finding like-minded artists, and using exaggerated color to energize your landscape paintings.