Whether painting still life, landscapes, European scenes, animals, or figurative works, Peggi Kroll-Roberts is drawn to shapes of color and the contrast between them. In a beach scene, intense sunshine on children playing while dark shadows fall on the water. In a still life, a bright slab of butter sits dramatically on a red plate. “I love to paint kids in their everyday lives. I like to paint pauses.” Kroll-Roberts says.

The artist was trained at Arizona State University and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA., then worked as an illustrator before making the transition to fine art. Today she lives with her husband, artist Ray Roberts and their three children, on a small ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California, surrounded by horses, chickens, cats and dogs. Her studio is a converted storage building heated by a wood stove. Most of her work is painted from life although she sometimes uses photographs to augment her plein-air paintings.