ARTIST'S STATEMENT

 

I am very blessed to have discovered this talent and started my new career in 1993 after 20 years of office management.  I had no formal lessons in art and it was a miracle from God that led me down this path that I never would have believed could happen.  If my portfolio doesn’t prove there is a God, then I don’t know what other logical explanation you could find for how I do what I do.  I guess it’s like the baby bird who grows up and without any help, knows exactly how to build the same kind of nest her mother made. Every  type of bird builds a different intricate nest and does it perfectly every time and in every generation.  The scientists cannot explain it.  It’s definitely a God thing.

In 2004 and 2006 I attended short workshops to observe other artists methods and learned that I had already stumbled onto most of the concepts that they used.  It was confirmation and very enjoyable to compare notes.  It should always be energizing and encouraging to meet your peers in any career.

Apparently, I use a lot of methods that are very rare if heard of at all, such as pen & ink on canvas and pastel on canvas.  I guess I just didn’t know any better and have been wildly creative and enjoying every minute of it.  I also paint in oil, acrylic, watercolor and sculpt in clay.  My pen & inks are highly detailed while  my paintings range from realistic portraits to impressionistic landscapes to my Asian abstract series.   I got a late start and want to try it all and then some! That I could open a commercial gallery in September 2005 and now 3 years later, still be in business is another miracle indeed. 

I have been teaching drawing since about 1999 since all I did during the first seven years of my art career until then was to draw houses, historic buildings and animals in pen & ink on canvas.  I became quite well known for that unusual method.   In the year 2000, I started painting and was shocked and delighted at how easily it came to me.  In 2002 I started teaching painting in all mediums.

 

I start all my students, whether adults or children, with drawing. It has rapidly become nearly a lost art as technology and expediency have led many ‘artists’ to trace,  project and paint over printed images.  I personally do not consider this real art.  (Sorry but that’s my opinion.)

 

You often  hear people say that painting is fun and drawing is work….. but  AU CONTRAIRE! And I beg to differ….  drawing the Suzy Way way (as my students call it) is easy and logical and fun.  Nobody flunks in my drawing classes.   Drawing and painting are not two separate things. You may draw with a pencil or charcoal as well as with a brush and the better you can do this, the more improved your finished paintings will be.  If you paint over an incorrect drawing, your finished work will suffer.  If you cannot draw well, you will likely even make a mess of painting over a printed image.

 

There really are no shortcuts to honest, enduring, original art.

 

- Suzy