29th annual Placer Artists Tour opens Nov. 11.

Local artists will welcome visitors on the 29th annual Placer Artists Tour, opening on Veterans Day weekend from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 11, 12 and 13. More than 100 artists are participating in the free tour this year, as well as galleries, music and art schools. Genres include jewelry, mixed media, photography, drawing, printmaking, ceramics and sculpture. Many artists will demonstrate their techniques during the Open Studios Tour. The locations are grouped in six regions around the county. The Loomis, Penryn and Newcastle area is home to 21 individual artists and two galleries. Select locations will be open for the "Encore Weekend" Nov. 18, 19 and 20. A circle icon in the Arts Directory and Tour Guide indicates which studios will be open only the first weekend or both weekends. High Hand Art Gallery, located in Loomis' former fruit packing sheds, boasts more than 40 artists, including several who are showing in their own studios during the tour as Location 32. Newcastle Packing Shed Gallery, location 38, boasts high ceilings and original wood floors. Tour artist Pat Stoddard Aragon paints horses. Stoddard portrays ranch life in oil, pastel and pencil. Ann Ranlett works in a technique known as scratchboard or "drawing with a knife." The finely-worked images of detail and precision sometimes resemble photography. Her studio is location 36 and her work can also be seen at High Hand and at Auburn Old Town galleries. Victoria Brooks, a painter of children and nature, is at location 29 in Loomis. Bob McClurg is a lifelong wood turner. His bowls appear in galleries but his work ranges far beyond vessels into serving sets, scoops and cutters. Location 33 also features Shannon McClurg, who makes jewelry, often mixing glass, stone and wood. Celeste Budd's detailed glass mosaics beam with color. Budd is at Loomis location 28, along with Jessica Fossum, who manipulates photography into digital magic. Another glass artist, Judy Butler, is well-known for her charming and playful small figurative work. Cats, dogs and rabbits wink from her kiln-formed pieces. Location number 34 on Fruitvale Road also features popular painter and woodblock printer/teacher Unni Stevens and five other artists. Also on the tour are jewelers Rebecca Martinez, well-known for her art podcasts and colorful casual jewelry in polymer clay, and Laura Bracken, working in a variety of metals and enamels. Karen Donaldson, printmaker, and two sculptors, Carole, Crockett, working in ceramics, and Louise McGown Bezark, transforming gourds into art, complete this rich assembly of artists. Sixteen Roseville and Rocklin artists and 11 Granite Bay artists are on this year's Tour, along with Blue Line Arts in Roseville. Longtime Rocklin tour artist Diane Ruhkala Bell (location 12) works in encaustic as well as showing printmaking. New to the tour is Anika Madan, a high school student, with paintings and drawings, along with three other artists at Johnson-Springview Park, location 11, courtesy of the city of Rocklin. At this location is another artist new to the tour, Dita Lewis-Panter, who works in ceramics and sculpture; Trisa Swerdlow, working in fused glass, jewelry and mixed media; and Gini Crepps, working in alcohol ink, mixed media and acrylics. The abstract work of Pattie Bowler shows a passion for rich, vibrant and intense color and texture. She will be at location 14. Blue Line Arts hosts three artists this year, including Maggie Gao-Gehlmann. Her delicate work is hand built, embellished with elaborate surface patterns, glazed and fired in a kiln. Also at location 15 are Leonard James, photography, and Phil Sargent, who creates turned wood pieces from reclaimed wood. In Granite Bay, first-time tour artist Unity Lewis brings the hip-hop sensibility of his music as well as a sense of history to his imaginative mixed-media paintings. Lewis' work was featured last month in the "Black Artists on Art" exhibit at the Crocker Art Museum. Raquel Cox, at location 21 in Granite Bay, is also participating for the first time with the Placer Artists Tour. She paints gleaming, representational work in oils. Longtime tour artist Joe Strickland, whose evocative abstract landscape is on the Tour Guide cover, will be open both weekends at location 19. Mya Louw, whose graceful work evokes the beauty of Placer County vistas, will be at location 25 the first weekend. On Saturday, November 19, Blue Line Arts hosts Auburn Symphony duo George Weis on cello and David Thorp on viola from 1:00 to 3:00pm. Consult the Arts Directory and Tour Guide for a complete listing of artists. The "Taste of the Tour" preview show will be on exhibit at Blue Line Arts, 405 Vernon St. in Roseville from Nov. 4 through Nov. 20. Blue Line Arts hosts the "Taste of the Tour" reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday. The reception features wine, beer and small bites from tour sponsors, and also features Auburn Symphony duo George Weis on cello and David Thorp on viola from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Saturday. This is an opportunity to see a sample of the work of every tour artist. Copies of the Arts Directory and Tour Guide are available at Blue Line Arts as well at participating galleries, art schools and many other businesses. Visit PlacerArtistsTour.org for more information and images for all artists and participating galleries and schools, and an extensive Events Calendar. You can also pre-register for the tour and become eligible for a variety of prizes.