Artist Spotlight: Theresa Shaw

Stained Glass Tulips

Devon, UK, based artist Theresa Shaw fell in love with paint at a very young age noting the primary colors and the smell of the binder, something she can easily recall now.  She remembers standing at the easel throwing paint "Jackson Pollock style".  That childhood freedom of painting with abandon kept her drawing and doodling, following in her mother's artistic footsteps.  She still has that first plein air work, a crocus from the front garden, created at age 11 when she laid down her plan to be an artist.

Even though Theresa fills her time as a gallery manager by day, her artwork has not played second fiddle.  Theresa works in acrylic ink, a medium that has the brilliance of acrylic color but flows more like watercolor.  With the acrylic washes, she can go back and create layers or remove color by scrubbing the surface.  As the process is very intuitive for her, Theresa lets each painting lead the way.

Stargazer Lilies

I have only posted a few of Theresa's floral watercolors here, but please check out her website for the many black and white landscapes she has created, another lovely original approach.

Theresa uses a variety of good brushes on her work, squirrel mops, wide hake brushes, lots of rounds, filberts and long liners.  Sometimes she will even pick up a bristle brush for it's ability to move and scour watercolor on the surface of paper or canvas.  Even though her arsenal of brushes is full, usually a piece will require just a few familiar ones.

After raising a family, Theresa transitioned into instructing watercolors as well as painting her own.  Within her own work as well as in teaching her students, Theresa advises to purchase quality.  A pattern that we've seen many times from seasoned artists. 

Chinese Lanterns

Theresa explains it better than I could say myself. "Good materials are the key to good art. Anything less and you will find yourself wrestling with shoddy materials and substandard equipment rather than creating a thing of beauty. Keep it simple, you don't need to buy everything, and spend as much as you can on the best quality. Better to have 3 brushes that you can use without thinking than 30 that won't do what you ask of them."

Keep Painting,
Karyn

 
For more brush information, check out the Dynasty Brush website.