MARK YOUR CALENDARS for the 2026-2027 Season!
We are excited to invite our members to attend the Kiawah Art Guild’s expanding programs. We are a local organization with a mission of promoting and educating the community with high standards in fine art. We all share our love of the Island and knowing our neighbors interested in Art.
Workshop sign-up is available immediately upon announcement. Workshop confirmation is not complete until payment is received.
NOTE: Workshop fees are separate and payable upon sign-up. As a courtesy to Members, cancellations to workshops must be communicated with a 60-day notice. Any cancellations or “no-shows” without the required notice will result in a 100% charge of the workshop fee. If the cancellation can be replaced by a member, a refund will be considered.
September 2026
Thank you in advance for paying your annual membership fee of $50.00, due by October 1, 2026. You can pay via Zelle ([email protected]), or by check mailed to 130 Gardeners Circle, PMB 509, John's Island, SC 29455.
October 2026
Annual KAG Meeting - October 5, 2026 11:00 - 2:00. Please bring your lunch, drinks will be provided. Please register below...
Location: Sandcastle
Kiawah Art Guild Fall show and sale - October 17, 2026 10:00- 3:00 (set up 10/16 1-4pm)
Location: Kiawah Town Hall
November 2026
ONE DAY WORKSHOP with Karen Hewitt Hagan – November 4, 2026 9:00 -4:00,
Location: Sandcastle
ABSTRACTING THE SOUTHERN MARSH - Karen will speak about and demonstrate her techniques of making the marsh “her own” by abstracting it with various techniques. She will guide us in learning to treat the typical marsh painting differently by thinking of and approaching it differently with different tools.
After a 20-year career in radio and television, Karen began her 30-year painting career as a plein air painter working in oil. She is self-taught, but was mentored by the late John Carroll Doyle. She has studied with many master landscape painters throughout the last 30 years and is still taking classes every year. In the last several years, her focus has been on larger abstracted landscape paintings, many of them stemming from the salt marsh reference. Karen lived and painted aboard a motor yacht, aptly named “Plein Air” for over 8 years, so the marsh and the coastal environs were her home for a very long time. She spent most of that time working on smaller plein air paintings of the landscape created from the travels from the up and down the eastern seaboard and to the Bahama Islands. Once back in the Charleston studio after 8 years of living on the water, even a 20x20 inch canvas seemed huge and daunting, but now her paintings routinely range up to 5 feet or more and they seemed to come to life more easily after she has started working in acrylics on her large works. She will bring both her little oils and her larger acrylics for us to study and discuss. Karen will share her passionate journey and work with you individually throughout the day to guide you in this exploration of “making things differently”. She has a strong belief that we each have unique voices and distinctive ways of creating and that is the real beauty of art. If we trust our instincts and try new things, our own voice will eventually emerge through our art. And it’s that voice that makes our hearts sing and makes us feel so wonderful. And as medical research now proves, Art makes us healthier. The more we participate in the arts, whether it’s viewing, supporting, or creating the better we feel.
Suggested Supply List: Karen will be working in acrylics and showing you how her small oils lead to the larger acrylic paintings, demonstrating how she uses both of the mediums very differently to achieve unique looks and create different feelings. You may work in any medium you prefer.
Please Bring:
4 6x8 inch canvases or canvas boards
2 larger canvases – around 12x12, 20x20 or even larger if you like.
*You may not use them all in one day, but you’ll have options and feel free to try new things by bringing extras. You can also work on Canva Paper which can be cut to your size preference. (Amazon). It’s thick enough to hold acrylic or oil.
4 of your own marsh photo references, printed or on your I-pad that inspire you and have a strong light and shadow pattern. If you do not have any, they will be supplied.
Paints: 2 blues, 2 reds, 2 yellows and one white plus an odorless medium if you’re working in oil.
Specifically Karen works mainly in: Cadmium Red Light, Permanent Rose, French Ultramarine Blue, Manganese Blue Hue, Cadmium Yellow Light, Yellow Ochre, Titanium White. (this is a warm and a cooler version of blue, yellow and red). Bring colors you like, but we'll do some exercises to prove just how much you can get from a limited palette of colors like these.
- One roll of white low tack artist tape
- One or two 6 inch plastic stencils of your choice (any design you like)
- 2 inch brayer (roller)
- One tiny chain (like from a ceiling fan)
- One long thin pallet knife
- One scape off tool
- A old kitchen spatula of any kind
- Paper towels
- Trash Bag
- Easel of choice
- A small sketch pad and a black thin sharpie marker
- Brushes of your choice, including a variety of medium sized stiff bristle brushes and some softer synthetic brushes up to 2 inches wide.
*See Karen’s specific supply list with links on her website at https://karenhewitthagan.com/post/11776-supply-list-oil-sketching.
Karen founded Hagan Fine Art Gallery & Studio in 2010 which she sold recently in 2024. “It’s been a full circle kind of year for me. My love of painting was what led me into the gallery business and that was a beautiful 14 years, but there was always a “pull” that called me back to the studio. So now, I’m happily back right where I started, traveling, sketching, painting and working on my paintings en plein air and in the studio”. Karen’s work is represented at Hagan Fine Art, downtown Charleston, The Gallery at Sweetgrass at Wild Dunes on Isles of Palms, and at City Art Gallery in Greenville, NC. She had a one-man exhibition at the Iredell Museums in Statesville, NC and has several works in the permanent collection of the Sanctuary Resort at Kiawah. Karen was a partner in Charleston Art Tours, demonstrating and teaching (adults) weekly at Mingo Point, Kiawah.
Karen currently splits her time almost equally between Charleston and Florida with her husband and puppy. She and her husband (an architect) renovate, build and restore houses in their free time. Since 2007 she has been leading empowering workshops and art retreats in Europe and the US. Her next European trip “Free Yourself Sketching and Painting Retreat” will be held at Dievole Wine Resort (near Siena, Italy) in October of 2026. Registration is now open and there are currently only 7 spots (of 12) left in the Retreat. See the details on her website https://karenhewitthagan.com/workshops.
KICA's Gift Show and Sale November 13-14, 2026 - Contact KICA if interested in showing
December 2026
Kiawah Art Guild Holiday Open House - December 2, 2026 Members and guests are welcome
Location: Sandcastle
2027
January 2027
Mid -season Meeting and Pass the Canvas Member Mingle, January 13
February 2027
Mark Horton 2-Day Workshop, February 23-24 - Location Sandcastle
March 2027
Julie Snidle 2-Day Workshop, March 9-10 - Location Sandcastle
April 2027
Karen Weihs 2-Day Workshop, April 8-9 - Location Sandcastle
May 2027
