Meet the Artist
A Colorado native, Sheryl Brake grew up on the western slope of Colorado where her love for drawing and painting was fueled by the majestic mountains and the splendor of nature. Her creative spirit showed itself throughout her young life in the form of textile arts in 4-H and various arts and crafts in Girl Scouts. However, it was in high school that she discovered the medium watercolor that fuels her passion to paint today.
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Creativity extends throughout Sheryl’s family. Her heritage includes a great-grandmother who was a watercolorist and china painter, her father who is an established artist, her mother who quilts and her two sisters who quilt, paint and make jewelry. Art class was Sheryl’s favorite class throughout her school years; however, when it came time to go to college, she discounted a degree in art and instead pursued a BS in Accounting because it was the "practical thing to do."
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Work in Process - "Dance with Me" and Sheryl's sketchbook practicing painting eggs.
"Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful."
Vincent van Gogh
Artist's Statement
Sheryl in her home studio in Windsor, Colorado
What inspires me and feeds my soul:
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The natural beauty and WONDER of the great outdoors and its inhabitants,
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Finding quiet COMFORT in slowing down our fast-paced world to admire the finer details of a flower or the colors and textures of an aging truck, and
It is the lovely details of our delicate and beautiful world and the emotions they evoke that are reflected in my artwork.
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Why I love watercolor:
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It is CHALLENGING and intriguing,
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The LUMINOSITY is lovely, both texturally and visually,
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The PLAYFUL way the way pigments flow and interact with water, paper, and each other, and
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The DEPTH and DETAIL that are captured when colors are glazed over one another.
My favorite tools:
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Transparent watercolor pigments made by Da Vinci, Daniel Smith, and Holbein,
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Arches 140 lb. or 300 lb. cold-pressed watercolor paper, and
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Silver Black Velvet round brushes in various sizes.
I occasionally experiment with other surfaces, such as watercolor ground on wood panel or watercolor board.
My thirst for knowledge:
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I am a life-long learner and believe if you stop learning you stop growing,
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Always striving to improve my art took me to the Schissler Academy of Fine Art and a Certificate in Studio Art. It is here that I developed a passion for portraiture and life-drawing using graphite pencil. Capturing the human figure and an individual's likeness awakened me to another form of beauty. I love the simplistic beauty conveyed by this medium,
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I continue to take courses from inspiring contemporary artists and find it exciting to be developing my own style.
​How my left brain works with the right:
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Creative, intuitive, and able to see the big picture – that’s my right brain,
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Analytical, naturally attentive to detail – that is my left brain,
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The two, work in tandem, to capture the details of my subjects.
My big hairy audacious goals:
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Take the viewer of my art to a place in their mind or heart,
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Have the viewer experience a sense of place, an emotion, a memory, or the simple pure wonder of the world we live in.
Other Pretty Cool Stuff
