October 2011 – Mask Show
First Thursday ~ October 6
5:30 – 7:30 pm
Music by Dian Norman
Mask Show Best of Show award and prize (gift certificate for The Broadway Gallery) will be announced at the First Thursday reception on October 6, 5:30-7:30.
Featured Artists
Susy Halverson (paintings) | Lee Boone (sculpture) | Donna Patching (paintings) | Dan Sheridan (pottery)
Suzy Halverson Painting Sea Lion Cave Back Door
Susy’s love for teaching art is obvious. She’s been teaching oil painting classes for 20 years, and has been a member of the gallery for 22. In fact, she says her best teachers have always been her students!
“They always test my skills with new challenges,” she says.
It’s easy to see why she learns from her students. Susy lets her students paint the subjects of their choice, and during any class, she may be problem-solving on as many as 12 different paintings at one time.
Susy’s first experience with art came at 12 years old. She visited her aunt in Olympia who introduced her to the esteemed northwest watercolor artist Charles Mulvey. When she shared some of her artwork with him, he encouraged her aunt to find a painting teacher for her.
Susy began oil painting in Frances Bond’s studio in Spokane that same year. She continued with her for three years until moving to Kelso, and she continues to take part in many workshops and college courses and think of herself always as a student, the true mark of a teacher.
Palouse Summer
Susy prefer to paint landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
“These are the places where I like to vacation and travel as much as possible. I’m never as content as when I am painting in the mountains while my husband and I are traveling,” she says.
If she’s not painting while traveling, she’s taking photos to use as study material for future paintings, both for herself and her students. She prefers to paint actual places so people can identify with them and remember the good times they had at that place or see how beautiful a place is and want to go there. It gives her a great feeling when someone identifies a place in one of her paintings!
Susy uses water miscible oil paints for classes and in her own paintings. These are nontoxic paints with low odor, which makes them ideal for classroom use. They also age as well as regular oil paint when sealed correctly. She uses a combination of bristle brushes, sable detail brushes, palette knives and even her bare hands.
If you are interested in taking a class by Susy, you can get the schedule on the Classes page.
Susy also knits and makes jewelry and you can learn more about her on her Artist page.