Artist's Background
Nina Shenton
Nina has done extensive studies in landscape, abstract, and still life.
She has used watercolour, acrylic, oil, waterbased oil, and combinations of these. She is presently working on canvas, paper, and board.
The watercolour to the left, as well as the oil painting,The Red Blanket , shown on the home page, belong to a series of paintings featuring the Similkameen River in Southern British Columbia.
Bromley Rock, watercolour on paper, 2010, 16 1/2" X 11"
An Longtime Passion
Nina Shenton grew up in the Similkameen Valley and was strongly influenced by the semi-arid landscape of the area, finding her sense of spiritual life in the vegetation, rocks and rivers of the area. She enjoyed drawing, painting, and sculpting as a teen but did not pursue her interest in art at college.
She continued to sketch and paint in her spare time while she raised her family and pursued several professional and business careers.
In 2008 a physical disability left her practically homebound. She used drawing and painting as a method of meditation and healing during the ten months she was away from work.
Her passion for landscape, colour, and composition were renewed during this period, but she did not pursue art on a professional level until she retired from teaching in 2010.
Making a hobby into a career is always a daunting decision. Nina followed the advice another artist gave her: "Tell everyone you are an artist, then work to be one."
She joined the New Westminster Artists group in the fall of 2010, and placed three paintings in the November show at the New Westminster Quay. She was greatly encouraged by her first sale at that show.
She will be exhibiting twenty works in the upstairs gallery of the New Westminster Public Library through the month of April.
Nina can be contacted at her email address:
Below: Jingle Girl , acrylic on canvas 2010
