Featured Artist Janet Dyer

Painter Janet Dyer presents a colorful portfolio of landscapes, created in a joyous, free-spirited style. Enjoy and view more by visiting her website.

 

 

I’ve been painting a long time, starting when I was about nine years old. I took lessons with a well-known artist in our town. Apart from that and getting my fine arts degree in a four-year college, I’ve pretty much worked on my own, learning from experience as I go.

 

 

I started painting landscapes in those early art classes. My parents encouraged me. My mother watched art shows on television while I was at school and showed me what she had learned when I got home. My father would display my work on an easel in the living room when we had parties (much to my embarrassment). I entered art in the County Fair every year and that’s where I sold my first painting to non-family, when I was thirteen, for $50!

 

 

I’ve worked in a variety of media besides painting, including printmaking. I taught life drawing in the local community college for five years and enjoyed drawing along with the students. I did it for the love of drawing, but also to show them that you never stop learning the craft and you can always hone your skills.

 

 

Each medium has its appeal, but I always come back to painting and landscapes are still my favorite subjects. There’s never any lack of material, luckily. You can make a landscape out of just about anything around you. I’m often drawn to farmed land, fields and meadows, here and abroad. When I travel, I’m mainly interested in the views. I take hundreds of photos, which I use as painting references.

 

 

For years, I never had a special place to paint. Then I attended a month-long art workshop in Assisi, Italy, where I had a space all my own. When I got home, one of the first things I did was rent studio space. I discovered how important it was to me, and I’ve had studios ever since. Not long ago I had to move out of the one I’d had for ten years, and then had to wait seven months until the next one was ready for me. Everything went into storage, and I switched to painting on paper on a travel easel in my bedroom. Perfectly doable—but an actual studio is wonderful.

 

 

My favorite tools are inexpensive 1-inch chip brushes and a palette knife. I like the little surprising passages that you get when you pull the blade across the surface, whether it’s canvas, or Claybord, or paper. You can’t always predict how the paint and tools will react. I’m receptive to the surprises—which might sometimes be called mistakes—because that’s how I discover new ways of working. I also find the palette knife can keep you from being overly detailed or precious.

 

 

Although I’ve been working in art for most of my life, I don’t have a philosophy of art. I only have one message: If making art makes you happy, do it. The world needs all the happy people it can get.

 

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