Artisan of the Week, Alisha Vernon

This week we have a Painter to delight your visual senses. Alisha Vernon paints bold, powerful pictures that may at first seem very simple, but they draw you in and the more you look the more you see. I found her work through her Etsy shop that sells mainly prints of her paintings, but also some originals too. Welcome to Autonomous Artisan Alisha.

1.Could you please introduce us to who you are and what you do?
I'm a 24 yr old girl currently living in Klamath Falls, Oregon with my Husband Jim and little dog Wiley. I love to paint, cook, blog, go to the beach, laugh with friends, try new ethnic foods, and go to the library.

2.What led you to take up your craft?
When I was four, my dad took painting classes. Instead of day care, he would take me to his classes with him. To keep me quiet he set me up with a little canvas and some paints. I remember painting some flowers and a self portrait. It wasn't child prodigy quality, but still pretty impressive for a 4 year old. I've loved painting ever since.

3.Which part of your work do you most enjoy?
The feeling of spreading around thick paint and being a little spontaneous with it. I especially love the moment when a painting transforms from looking like a jumbly mess, to something beautiful. It's frustrating at some point, and then you press on, and all of a sudden you step back and say "hey, that's looking pretty awesome." It's exciting. Oh yes, and I also love perusing art supply stores. So many possibilities in there.

4.Which part do you find hardest?
Being patient with a painting. Sometimes I expect a painting to look great at every step in the process, when really that's not how it works. I have a few abandoned paintings because I've deemed them helpless, when really I should probably just keep working on them. I just get impatient sometimes.

5.Where do you hope to be in 1 year's time?
I'm currently selling some of my previous work on Etsy, donating 50% to Project Rescue. I'd love to sell all of those paintings. I'd also like to have created a cohesive body of work and be in a few more art shows.

6.What is the best advice you have ever been given?
Last spring I took 2 classes from a community college. My prof. J.S. Bird gave so much good advice when it comes to painting. One thing I'll always remember is him teaching us that when certain issues in your painting come up repeatedly, you need to pay attention, because there's a good chance you're struggling with the same things in your life. For example, at a certain point in the painting process I would look at it and say "I don't like it. It's not good." ...and I would feel like quitting, and he would say "Figure out exactly what it is that you don't like about it, and then fix that." Seems simple right? I realized that I can tend to do that in my life as well. It was an eye opener.

7.Name other artisans sites/shops would you recommend are worth a visit?
I love the fun paintings of my friend Noelle Dass.
A couple favorite photographers on Etsy are Flandersfield and AliciaBock

8.What is your favourite sandwich filling?
Anything with avocado!



Thank you Alisha for joining in with our blog. Alisha is a very talented lady and not only sells her artwork she also makes and sells baby clothes. Keep up to date with what's going on in Alisha's world with her art blog.