Creating started for me when as a young child, I was confined to bed much of the time. The severe asthma limited any physical activity. I turned to sketching, drawing, coloring and over time filled notebooks with my creations mostly trees and flowers.
As I outgrew my disabilities, outdoors and participating in sports took over. The pleasure of creating in my early years got secreted away somewhere in my inner soul and at the age of 50 when I moved from an urban setting into the vastness of the California high desert something happened.
I was swept away by the open skies and especially the brilliant sunsets. My black and white world turned overnight to Technicolor and a voice within got stronger and louder and that voice said “create“.
Creating started for me when as a young child, I was confined to bed much of the time. The severe asthma limited any physical activity. I turned to sketching, drawing, coloring and over time filled notebooks with my creations mostly trees and flowers.As I outgrew my disabilities, outdoors and participating in sports took over. The pleasure of creating in my early years got secreted away somewhere in my inner soul and at the age of 50 when I moved from an urban setting into the vastness of the California high desert something happened. I was swept away by the open skies and especially the brilliant sunsets.
My black and white world turned overnight to Technicolor and a voice within got stronger and louder and that voice said “create“.
I started by painting on flower pots, baskets around the house but soon I knew I had to do more so I bought some oils, then acrylics, and then watercolors. I enrolled in night classes at the local college because I needed to continue working. I painted evenings, weekends and vacations, anytime I could. It was around a year later that I picked up a student set of pastels to play with. I was hooked from my first stroke never looking back.
The focus of my work is the outdoors. I also started backpacking at the age of 50 and loved that as well. I absorbed the beauty around me and once back in my studio, I painted using my memory and the photos I took as references.
My painting has taken me on a journey of self exploration, communicating to both myself and the viewer the beauty I find in nature.
Lately that journey has taken me on and off to a more abstract place, still with the focus on nature. I’m in my seventies now and long hours at the easel are not happening. I’m more absorbed in the creative energy of my strokes, leaving much detail out. I find this cuts to the quick and gives the viewer the space to fill in the gaps and finish the story.
My art is currently featured at Timberline Art Gallery in Oakhurst, California and at my home studio in Coarsegold, California where I teach.
You can also see my artwork on the covers of the new Canson pastel art pads of earth tones and grey tones. My art was featured in International Artist magazine and in Blick pastel’s ad in Pastel Journal this year. I open my home and studio doors to the public at Sierra Art Trails every year. Visit www.anitastoll.com or www.anitastollpastelssublime.blogspot.com
