Paula Horton

•     I started painting in 2005 after my mom had passed away. As part of the grieving process, I felt I had to do “something”.
  

    When I saw a newspaper ad for a painting class (Donna Dewberry One Stroke) I signed up. Our wonderful art teacher Karen taught us how to deconstruct a flower to paint it – the process clicked and I started to love painting flowers. As a gardener, these two activities went hand in hand.

     Once I finished the class I started painting and giving away bookmarks by the dozens and a friend suggested I start selling them. Then came the slates which came from our church (the roof was being replaced). The following year in 2006 I started participating in craft fairs and this gave me the confidence to experiment with more craft painting to include wine glasses, all types of glassware and vases, clay garden pots and furniture.

     In 2014 I wanted to expand my creativity and took some art classes at Michael’s – again, a wonderful teacher Andrew taught me the basics of canvas work. He showed me how to layout a still life in a grid to get the proportions correct. These were my beginning paintings and although some are quite bad, I learned something from each painting I completed.

     Once retiring and moving to Maine in 2015 with my husband, I took an art class with another wonderful teacher Katie who taught me so much more about colors, still life, shadow, composition, and scale. I truly appreciated her patience with me. So my quest to continue to create has brought me to this point and I scour the internet for ideas from other artists and experiment with sketching, watercolors, oil and acrylics.

      I have now circled back to craft painting and am enjoying how much fun it is to embellish each piece for others to enjoy. It’s exciting to take a plain wine glass or clay pot and transform it into a beautiful piece of art.

     I have learned that I am a visual person and am inspired by images I see all around me. Whether it be online (mostly generous artists who post their work on Pinterest and Facebook), from a book cover, paintings from other artists, or a building, I paint what I love onto glassware, garden clay pots and lighted bottles.

     Maine is pure inspiration with its landscapes, sunsets, pink and orange sky against coastal islands, flowers, birds, ocean, the jagged coastal rocks and pine trees – this all helps me focus my craft pieces to reflect that beauty.