Susan Stephens

Wild Friends
The artist's love of wildlife and nature is conveyed in these skillful watercolor portraits.

 

 

I find the medium of watercolor to be both refreshing and challenging. I love working with color in its infinate variety, and finding the balance between light and dark, vivid and subtle. My inspiration has always been from nature, which sustains me in so many ways. I have been painting for over 40 years, along with my career as a classroom teacher and now as a psychotherapist and volunteer. I have had six one-person shows, three when I lived in Maryland and three here in Boulder. I have been a member of the Boulder County Arts Alliance for six years, and exhibited one of my watercolors at the Dairy Center as part of a fund raiser for BCAA.

I have found inspiration from mountains for a long time, and was thrilled to come to Boulder seven years ago and be able to look at them every day. Some of my mountain paintings came from photographs in a wonderful book called, "The Mountains of America." Others came from photos taken by my husband, Ken.

Though landscape painting has long been my focus, several years ago I decided to move toward painting wildlife in their natural settings. I have often used as my inspiration the photographs of Art Wolfe, and have his permission to display my art work. When I paint animals, I try to convey their spark of aliveness, and the natural feeling of their life in teh wild. Though the animal portraits are painted realistically, I often paint the landscapes in an abstract mode, exploring the various effects that watercolor can produce.

I would like to close with a poem by Henry Thoreau that expresses my spiritual connection with nature:

If the day and night are such
That you greet them with joy,
And life emits a fragrance
Like flowers and sweet-scented herbs....
That is your success.
All nature is your
Congratulations.

~Susan Stephens