Ken Opin is a Wisconsin-based watercolor artist working in abstract and semi-abstract painting. He did not make his first piece of art until age 60. Now 85, he has been making art for 25 years and has focused on watercolor for the past three and a half years.

Before that, he spent his career as a lobbyist for a public employee union. He has a lifetime of public service, beginning with two years in the Peace Corps Iran after college and more than 40 years of service on municipal committees and commissions.

Opin works both plein air and in the studio, often using cut-up credit cards instead of brushes to scrape, drag, and lift paint. New to plein air, he is learning to work quickly in changing light. His paintings start with something seen or imagined — trees, water, buildings — and are pared down to shape, light, and space.

He is interested in reduction — starting with a recognizable place and paring it down to its essential shapes and the space between them.