On Being An Artist....

"Steppin' Out", 9x12" acrylic on paper
$150 unframed

Today I thought I would write a bit about my journey as an artist. I hope you will find it interesting and inspiring! I posted it some of it on my Facebook page, so some of you may have seen it there.

I have decided to go back to doing some figurative work, revisiting an idea I explored almost two decades ago. I have begun again to go to live model drawing, weekly since June, skipping the summer months, and boy was I ever rusty! I had never been taught how to draw the figure or portraits (even in art school), so my learning has been up to me. It is exhilarating, depressing and exhausting, but I know my efforts will pay off if I stick to it. The internet has become a fantastic tool to learn just about anything by, often at little cost compared to live workshops or classes, and learning to draw is right up there. 12 years ago when I began to work with the figure, there was hardly anything online (heck was there even internet back then :)?) Learning figure drawing from books is a very difficult way to learn for a visual learner like me!

While I was looking for great figure drawing lessons, I came across two videos that I think are valuable to watch, not just for artists, but for everyone. The first is found here, called "How NOT To Be An Artist". Pretty funny and right on. The other is a video on "How To Practice -Improve your Art Skills (or any skills) the Smart Way". Find it here. Please let me know what you think of these when you are finished watching them!

Now, I am pretty insecure showing anyone my efforts thus far, but hopefully will begin to do so more as I become more comfortable with the process. I am showing you one of my latest explorations above -done from a 2 minute sketch done on a painted background I had from an old Jane Davies class, and then painted. I love how the background shows through -I used to do something similar, but in an entirely different way. 

Here is one of my old figure paintings. The figure was done from a photo rather than from life, and that is NOT what I want to do now!

"Too Loose", 12x12" acrylic and collage, 2002

My favourite thing is to combine what I have already 'mastered' with the new thing -always a challenge that allows me to continue to grow as an artist. So I want to PAINT the figure as well -Oil, acrylic, collage, watercolour, pastel -media that I have learned to use, by putting in all the hours and hours of hard work described in the video above. Oh, and there is abstracted realism, which I find fascinating and WAY more difficult and visually interesting than pure realism IMHO.

Never satisfied with copying anything, I need to find my OWN way to express what I see and feel. Now that significantly ups the stakes, as not only do I need to learn HOW to do something, I need to learn how it looks MY way. Of course that means LOTS of work, trial and error, and the subsequent MOUNTAIN of failures. Not for the faint of ❤️.

I have the following quote stuck to my studio door that you may feel inspiring:

Wish me luck (and sanity).

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"Poise" encaustic and ENCAUSTIC WORKSHOP by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Poise", 12 x 7" encaustic painting on panel
$395 framed, click here to purchase

I know I said I would post Haida Gwaii paintings today, but I have just finalized arrangements for an encaustic workshop to be held here in Calgary Oct 17 & 18th. I just had to post a recent encaustic painting to advertise it!(please see the sidebar on my blog for the details)

The above painting was done by using a pastel pencil for the figure and a stencil was used to develop the lower pattern. I think she looks like she is sitting on grass in front of a flower garden.

Enjoy!
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"Garden Of Earthly Delight", encaustic mixed media painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

Garden Of Earthly Delights, 9x9" encaustic mixed media painting
SOLD

This is another encaustic exploration piece, this time beginning with an image that I shot many years ago in Italy. I altered the image in photoshop, adhered it to the support and then laid wax over it in vertical stips. Then I went back into the image and added oil colour to the statue and leaves. I am amazed how the wax looks like rain coming down. What a cool medium encaustic is!


Enjoy!

To purchase this painting, commission your own painting or contact me to do a workshop in your area, please email me at williamsdotsharonatshawdotca (insert characters for the dot and at!)

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New Oil and Clearance Sale painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Men Hens", oil on board, 6x6"
SOLD

I did this from a photo I took in Acapulco a dozen years ago. I just love the body language on these guys, hence my title. (snigger, snigger) My painting challenge is to learn to paint well from photographs! Unusual I know, but I am such a 'life or nothing' person. It took me WAY too long (aka 2 days) to finish it. I must persevere!!!

I ended up re-photographing my entire show today -what a huge job! There will be about 68 paintings in total, along with photos and text -and I am WAY behind doing the book that will accompany the exhibition. You'all better come if you are in town!!!

Clearance Sale Painting!

"Coulee Light", watercolour, 15 x 22" image, matted in double archival mats, unframed
retail price $450.00
For a limited time only $180.00 plus GST, shipping and handling.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

'Blob' Crowds!

We have just begun a figurative unit in my Wednesday watermedia classes, so I thought I would post an exercise I gave them, in case you wanted to try it out yourselves. We began the unit with incidental figures -the figures that populate a landscape to give it a sense of scale or to make it feel 'lived in'. There are a few great videos online on how to paint these little characters here and here. We began by just painting silhouettes of people doing things, then progressed to dressing them. Then it was time to group them together so that they didn't look so isolated from each other and self-important.

I made a multi-coloured blob with watercolour on small pieces of leftover watercolour paper. These are about 4 x 5" in size. Then the chore was to find a crowd of people in all that colour! I lifted areas of colour, added legs and costumes, did lots of negative painting and then found more people in that. The first photo shows a less refined stage of the process, so you can get the idea (I hope!). Sometimes I just have fun beginning a painting just this way, with a doodle, finding the characters and then building them a stage on which to tell their story. Sometimes it works out great, sometimes not so great, but it is always a fun adventure!

I spent most of this last week doing a complete overhaul of all the images on my website, and updating all my class and workshop information. Hope you like it, it was a huge undertaking. Don't ask me why I don't do it more often!!

"Flower Girl", acrylic painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"Flower Girl", acrylic painting, 12 x 16"
SOLD 

This painting began as a way to use up the leftover paint on my palette after 3 different painting sessions. It was looking kind of interesting, so I decided to pursue it to see what it could become. The cruciform shape began to look like the body of a woman in a kimono, so I gave her a head and then saw that she was holding a pot of flowers. Colours in the lower right and upper left quickly became flowers, and voila, flower girl.

I wanted to let you know that I will be teaching "Introduction to Mixed Media Painting" at Series in Red Deer this summer from July 26 to 30th. You can see the full colour brochure at the link above.

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.

"The Mentor:, mixed media painting by Sharon Lynn Williams

"The Mentor", mixed media painting, 15 x 22"

I progressed this painting over a couple of weeks for my mixed media class. Such an adventure, as it always is when working from chaos. It began with a failed start that I began to collage pieces of coloured magazine papers to. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the start, and it has come a long way since then. The figures appeared so I went with that thought. As it went along, I began to think about mentoring -how we sit at the feet of a master, hungry to learn all they have to teach us. The vessel shape symbolized the well of knowledge, the text representing notes taken so the nuggets don't get lost. I have sat at the feet of several wonderful mentors, including Virginia Cobb, Carla O'Connor, Gerald Brommer and George James, to name a few of my most favorites. Now I have others who are learning from me. And so the cycle continues...

Enjoy!

To purchase this, or commission your own painting, please email me.