Featured Artist Pattie Brooks Anderson

Beautifully drawn watermedia paintings by Pattie Brooks Anderson are filled with magical, dreamlike imagery inspired by poetry, quotes and philosophy. See more artwork by visiting her website.

 

 

All my life I have loved images. I spent hours as a child examining the images in my picture books. I have equally delighted in drawing since as early as I can remember. I suppose this love for intricate illustrations and drawing, particularly line drawing, has influenced my work since I first began painting over forty five years ago. I once had an instructor tell me, “You are linear, don’t lose that!”

 

 

Currently, my artwork is inspired by visual images that come to me from poetry, quotes, philosophy, and native culture and history. On occasion, ideas appear to me as complete images, perhaps during meditation, or when I am walking in the trees or on the beach.

 

 

Sometimes I have an idea in mind when I start a painting; other times I do not. Either way, I always begin the painting intuitively and very loosely in watercolor. I sometimes don’t know why I am painting a color or shape or what the image is going to be until I get closer to completion.

 

 

I begin to see something in the shapes or in the colors and begin working over the watercolor with ink. This allows me to close in on what it is. I might seek reference at this point to use in the drawing.

 

 

There is the moment when the message becomes clear to me. It is often deeper and more complex than the simple image that I imagined initially. At this point, the painting begins to impart a kind of knowledge to me.

 

 

It is as though this information is being transmitted through a source greater than I, or perhaps, from a part of me that at some point becomes connected to it. Some artists refer to this as “being in the zone.”

 

 

During this process I don’t mind consenting to a little whimsy. It allows me to create a kind of magical quality in the work.

 

 

There are themes that are constantly present in my work: trees, animals, and the idea of metamorphosis, birth and rebirth. Within these themes, I try to impart awareness for the interconnectivity of all forms of life.

 

 

I am fascinated with legends and ancient history and the spiritually of people living in those times, particularly their propensity for the sacred. For them, each animal and flower had meaning.

 

 

For me, each place, animal and object seem to take on sacredness once I have truly experienced it. I marvel at the individual beauty unique to each. At this moment they seem to take on an aura of sacredness as a result of the impression kindled in me.