Article

Alice Weil: Painter of mighty oaks and golden hills

by Linda Hubbard Gulker on May 5, 2010

 

“I don’t have a story – I’m just a painter,” announces Alice Weil seated a bit uncomfortably – thanks to the presence of a persistent photographer – in her light-filled Menlo Park studio.

But then the stories start coming. About moving to the hills of the Peninsula as a child and being transfixed by the smell of turpentine and oil emanating from a neighbor’s studio. About marrying her Woodside High School classmate even though she didn’t know him when they were in school (they met eight years later). About the kind of music she paints t0 – make that country and western, reggae and Hawaiian slack key guitar.

 

  

Alice is an oil painter, mainly of landscapes. “What I really love is a distant view,” she says. “I love to gaze – I’m dangerous on 280.”

 She has won numerous  awards, most recently “Best in Show” of the Menlo Art League. Her California landscapes also make their way out of the state; currently she has paintings at a gallery in Downer’s Grove, Illinois. Currently, a selection of her work can viewed at The Portola Art Gallery in Menlo Park, CA.

If it was the smell of an artist’s studio that first drew Alice to her medium, it’s one that she’s trying to leave behind. “I’m trying to ban turpentine and as many toxic products as possible from my studio, ” she says.  “I’m doing this for my own health as well as the environment. The oil paint itself isn’t great but I can’t do much about that.

“I use baby oil to clean my brushes and orange-based varnish as a medium. My studio smells like babies and oranges! I love it.”

 

Photo of Alice Weil by Chris Gulker

Summer Golden Hills, Oil on Canvas by Alice Weil (c) 2010. Used with permission.

 

 

Brief Biography

I was born in San Francisco, California. When I was two years old, my family moved to the rural hills of Redwood City, California. I was exposed to art and inspired at a very early age by a close family friend. He was a  neighbor and plein air painter.  "To this day the smell of turpentine, linseed oil and paint sweeps me back to that studio in the hills, filled with easels, paintings of the California landscape and a kind old painter".

This painter finds peace painting under the shade of mighty oaks as they grace the golden hills around the San Francisco Bay Area.  My paintings reflect the power and strength of the bay area landscape, omitting the hand of man in most of my paintings.  I'm is inspired by the fog laden coastal range and the dramatic seasonal changes of the surrounding foothills.  My goal is to take the viewer  to a quiet relaxed place.

I enrolled in art classes throughout high school and college.  Recently studied with The California Academy of Painters.

I'm a member of Oil Painters of America, The Los Gatos Art Association, The Society of Western Artists and Bay Area Contemporary Plein Air Circle (BACPAC).

I have participated in many group and one person shows, receiving numerous awards, including "Best of Show" 1st Place and more.

My paintings are in private collections throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Email: aliceweilfineart@gmail.com