Christina Oldenburg, ‘Motif #1’

Christina Oldenburg, ‘Mill Pond at Putney’

Christina Oldenburg

Christina studied painting for two years at the University of Texas at Austin before changing her major and earning a BA in psychology.  After marriage and the arrival of three sons she returned to her watercolor interests, participating for several years in weekly plein-air watercolor sessions with well-known California watercolorist Nat Levy.  These watercolor sessions were augmented with participation in workshops such as those taught by Eliot O’Hara, Ken Potter, and Richard Yip.

After a career of more than twenty years as a School Psychologist in the Sausalito and San Francisco school districts, retirement gave time for Christina to pursue her life-long artistic passions for the textile arts of sewing and knitting as well as watercolor painting. She has developed these interests, especially the painting, as an independent craftsperson, participating in several sessions of plein-air watercolor instruction with Seattle watercolorist Tom Hoffmann.

Christina remembers her first watercolor painting class at a small private art school in Shreveport, Louisiana when she was ten years old.  Promised a course in watercolor painting she was initially disappointed when the teacher required her to participate in several sessions of charcoal drawing.  The day came when the teacher announced that Christina was ready for watercolor!  Off with her mother to the art store to buy those magic tubes of watercolor paint:  Ultramarine Blue, Hookers Green, Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson and Burnt Sienna!  With those five pigments a whole world of beautiful painting was at her fingertips, just waiting to be created!