Geese get a little beach time in this painting by Martinez artist Mary Lou Correia. Correia is this month’s featured artist at Plein Air Gallery. (Painting by Mary Lou Correia)

Martinez artist Mary Lou Correia has been all over the world, usually with a sketchbook and camera in hand. It is from these trips that she has captured scenes of nature and wildlife with her oil and pastel brushes. Viewers can see these paintings beginning tomorrow at Benicia Plein Air Gallery, where Correia is the featured artist through Aug. 1.

Correia is the gallery’s newest member, having been a part for nine months. “Colors of Joy: Honoring the Stewardship of the Earth” is her first featured exhibition, but she has been involved in art for a long time. She taught art at Salinas High School and Monterey Community College, and she has exhibited throughout the Bay Area and nationally in such programs as the Oil Painters of America Annual Show in Washington, D.C.; Carquinez Scene on the Straits in Martinez; and the Plein Air Painting Festival in Carmel. As the name of the Benicia gallery would suggest, Correia specializes in plein air painting.

“I paint because I love being in the theater outside painting all sorts of scenes,” she said.

Many of the scenes have been throughout the world in places like France, Portugal, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, where she recently took a trip and painted all kinds of wildlife. Correia has specialized in paintings of wild animals for a long time. Most of these have been birds like egrets, eagles, blue herons and the geese along Benicia’s waterfront. She also has painted bears in Yosemite, bobcats on the Mendocino coast and bison in Yellowstone.

“I came home and did a studio painting of all of Yellowstone and the bison,” she said.

The biggest challenge in painting wildlife, Correia said, is getting them to stay still.

“You have to catch the moment of the position of an animal as it’s walking,” she said.

However, Correia paints figures a lot so she has managed to develop a knack for capturing animal’s movements in her sketchbook.

Not all of Correia’s paintings are of animals though. One of her newest works is titled “Sunset Serenity” and features Benicia’s Red Baron on the Carquinez Straits at twilight.

“I really love the ambiance of the town and being by the water,” she said.

Likewise, Correia also likes painting trees, whether the almond trees in the spring or the maple trees in the fall.

Overall, Correia hopes people will come away from her show with a new appreciation of the earth.

“We’re not here for a long time,” she said. “I really treasure it. I was just down in Monterey at Point Lobos, and we stood outside Point Lobos just enjoying the painting of the sights. What I find is that when I’m out painting like that, people stop and look sometimes at the painting but mostly what you’re looking at. I think they stop and have an appreciation of the earth.”

“Joy of Colors” is on display through Aug. 1 at Plein Air Gallery, located at 307 First St. A reception will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday, July 14 during the Art Walk, where people can enjoy the paintings while sipping wine and noshing on appetizers. The gallery’s hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.

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