Laurie M Shelton

About Me

Cows have become a shape that I use to explore my emotions.  Often I will work on a figure or an abstract and finish my day with a sort of "cow meditation." 

After stepping away from life drawing for a couple of years, I am back in a regular group called the Drawing Circus. It is these sketches from a moving model that become inspiration for new paintings. 

Art wasn't something I thought I needed to study, as my mother exposed me to art from the beginning.  Art was just a part of our life... she engrossed herself in so many art forms:  painting, textiles and crafting.  I didn't start painting with commitment until after the birth of my daughter in 2001, hormones and time awakened my need to paint and I haven't stopped since.  I wanted to be part of the "Self-taught" artists, so I worked on my own until I lost my husband to cancer unexpectedly.  I soon realized how ignorant I was and enrolled at the Academy of Arts in San Francisco.  My work has always been influenced by summers at my grandparents farms in Michigan.  But, it is the cow shape that seems to hold most of my attention.  

My art is a gift I honor everyday.  I have since remarried and live in Palo Alto, CA.  My paintings are shown in the Silicon Valley, Napa Valley and Paris.  I find inspiration in the paintings of Diebenkorn, Bonnard, Gregory Kondos and Lucian Freud and so many others.