Artist, photographer and Santa Barbara native Danielle Renée Methmann will present her newest collection of wine paintings, painted with local red wines, 5-8pm. Thursday, Sept. 6, at Grassini Family Vineyards Tasting Room, 24 El Paseo.

Paintings will be on exhibit Sept. 3-10 at Grassini Family Vineyards new tasting room in El Paseo courtyard as part of Downtown Santa Barbara’s First Thursday Series.

Recently inspired by Santa Barbara County’s bountiful wine region, passionate winemakers and fellow local wine painter Christina LoCascio Larner, Methmann wanted to test her painting skills with this new yet ancient medium, wine.

Having tested a wide variety of art mediums throughout her life, this seemed an obvious one, yet very unexpected and even more intriguing, she said.

Methmann has always loved animals with a particular curiosity for cephalopods and came across an image of an octopus hatchling which looked exactly like wine hues.

This observation sparked her first wine painting, Octopus Hatchling, created using Lincourt Wine’s Pinot Noir with a little help of watercolor pigments for the extreme hues.

More painting followed, all inspired by animals, some of which are seen at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

Methmann’s Penguin March features Lucky the Penguin, who was born with a deformed foot. Decker’s Corporation designed a special boot for Lucky. Without the boot, Lucky might have died.

Methmann is a self-taught photographer who draws inspiration from nature and surrounding environments.

With a formal fine art and digital art and animation background from SBCC, Methmann pursued the TV industry and thrived in marketing and promotions as head of the creative department at independent arts network Ovation TV.

There she earned several BDA Promax awards and proudly earned an International Telly Award in 2013 for a documentary series on a group of local artists in Detroit who are dedicated to restoring their city.

She lives in Santa Barbara and is seeking venues for future installations. For more, visit www.daniellereneepix.wixsite.com/photography.

— Danielle Methmann.