The Singing Spring, oil, 24”x30” “I brought my young friend, Rowan, out to a pond that has an old boat I like because it has a lot of   character. I asked her to get into the boat and do whatever came naturally. There was a magic when, with a sweep of her arm, she started letting the water drip through her fingers.”	Belle Harvest, oil, 36”x24” “There is something that captivates me about the in-between moments of a model between stillness and movement. In this painting, I especially liked how the scene, combined with my model’s lyrical clothing, felt like a mixture of the earth and the exotic.”
In the Garden, oil 36”x24” “I discovered a dahlia garden lately. Visiting and painting there at different times of day, I was intrigued with the expression of the model’s face and movement amidst the flowers.”	Morning at the Lake, oil, 24x16 “What could be nicer than the warmth of a wooden pier underneath one’s feet in the morning?”
Jazzminh, oil, 24x18in. “The model brought a fresh, open quality, a strength and a gracefulness that came through in this piece. I titled the painting with her name.”	A Place in the Light, oil, 20x24in. “The classical elegance of her profile, combined with the sense of light enveloping my sister Bethany in delicious color, offered an enticing subject.”

"Ariana Richards Keeping Things Lively
By Vicky Stavig
She’s only 26, but already Ariana Richards has two decades of work experience under her belt. She began modeling and acting at age 6, then switched gears and today is an award-winning artist who finds joy in painting figures and landscapes that are finding an increasingly large audience. Her work has been the subject of museum and solo shows and is included in international corporate collections. Add to that a first-place award at last year’s National Professional Painting Competition, and it’s not a stretch to say that Richards has her feet firmly planted on the path to a long and successful career in fine art.

Raised in California’s Ventura County, Richards says she was “a bit of a tomboy, climbing trees and building forts with my younger sister and friends.” That energy was channeled in a different direction when her mother, a dance instructor, was approached one day and asked if Ariana might be interested in a modeling job for a local mall. I did it and I loved it,” Richards says, adding that she used the money she earned to purchase a puppy. She was so excited about that modeling experience that her parents decided to get her an agent and give their daughter a trial period in which to pursue modeling. “I started getting commercials; the first was for Fantastic Sam’s hair salon,” Richards says. That progressed to acting roles, which included “The Golden Girls” and, later, Lex in the movie “Jurassic Park.” Although Richards enjoyed acting and continued until she entered college, she was drawn to another artistic venture: painting. That interest was part nature, part nurture.

“My grandmother on my mother’s side is a painter,” Richards says. “I would visit her as a child, and she’d give me lessons in color theory, and we would experiment with different mediums.” Richards’ artistic heritage extends beyond that, however. She can trace her genealogy back to the early Italian Renaissance and Carlo Crevelli, a contemporary of Botticelli. By the time Richards was 12, she was studying art with a private tutor.

“I was doing a lot of pastels during high school and sold my first one to some friends I met while promoting “Jurassic Park” in Japan,” Richards says, “I was about 15. That was my first sale. It was a pasted of two golden retriever puppies. I was painting a lot of animals in pastels then. I also sold a self portrait to the same family.”

Eventually, the desire to create art overtook Richards’ desire to act. “It wasn’t so much that I was making a choice to stop acting,” she says. “It was more that art gradually bloomed and became more important to me.” Richards enrolled at Skidmore College in New York, where she went on to earn a Bachelor of Science Degree in fine art and drama.

Following her graduation, Richards returned to California, this time landing in Southern California, north of Los Angeles, and began to show her work at a local gallery, where she heard about the California Art Club, an organization that promotes traditional and representational fine art. Richards sought out some of its members and soon was accepted into the organization’s mentoring program. “I spent lots of one-on-one time with those artists and learned so much” she says. “I would go out painting with them, taking out French easels, and the friendships that evolved are wonderful.”

 At the time, Richards was painting both landscapes and figures, eventually following her heart—and her genetics—to focus on figures. “As time went on, I became more and more committed to the figurative side of things,” she says. “Part of my artistic philosophy goes back to the Italian Renaissance, when it was all about the beauty and potential in humanity, about the beauty in nature, from light on water to gorgeous sunsets.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that Richards has forsaken landscapes. She continues to paint them but includes figures, which have become her real focus. Asked what she attempts to convey, Richards responds, “With landscapes and figures together, it’s really about the figure. If I’m doing a landscape purely for itself, it’s getting across a sense of the space, light, and color, the peacefulness of being there, the experience I had in being there. With a model, I want to convey a deep sense of presence.”

Working from models, Richards says she likes to capture “a feeling a mystery.” Her favorite model, she adds, is her sister Bethany, who has been featured in several paintings. “I paint friends, too, people I enjoy spending time with and have  a personal connection with. When you are working with a model, there needs to be a sense of teamwork. I t helps me to get their essence across in the painting.”

Richards also uses herself as a model and has painted several self portraits. “It’s just a totally different experience,” she says. “It’s a lot more introspective, a whole new way of approaching the process.”

But plein air painting continues to hold a special appeal for Richards. “I do a lot of plein air painting,” she says. “It keeps me really fresh; it’s invigorating. Any time you work form life, with the wind blowing, the light changing, it keeps things lively. I work in plein air and refine the piece in the studio. I love painting at the ocean. I enjoy the sounds of the ocean birds, the freshness of the air, and the cool breeze. I also love the valleys where I live, the vistas and rolling hills.”

Oil paints are Richards’ medium of choice and have been since her college years. “I had used pastels, watercolors, and acrylics, by I like the luminosity, the textures, of oils,” she says. “You can play with brush strokes and get very rich effects.”

Two years ago, Richards moved to western Oregon, where she recently completed work on a new studio at her home on six acres of land in what she describes as ‘horse country.” “I enjoy visiting cities and love going to museums and exhibits, the theater and opera,” she says, “but I love living outside the city where I can hear the crickets and sounds of nature.”

A member of the Oil Painters of America and the California Art Club, Richards paints every day “so I can keep everything flowing,” she says. “It’s like exercising a muscle. I paint for a few hours, take a break, and then go back to painting. There’s always something percolating.”

When she’s not painting, this multi-talented young woman often gathers together a group of friends for an evening of music. “I studied singing as a child and did a professional recording when I was about 15,” she says.

What’s on the horizon for this talented young artist? “I intend to keep participating in the Renaissance tradition of art ateliers, events, and lively sharing of ideas within the community of people who love traditional art,” she says. “And I would like to mentor younger painters one day.”

On a personal level, Richards says she would like to marry and have children some day. “Also, besides making time for a horse in my life again, I think it would be great to be bequeathed a castle in either France or Italy so I could visit for the occasional art retreat,” she says with a smile.