Artist Interview - Karen Chapman
Good friend and Newquay Society of Artists Treasurer Karen Chapman is one of those quiet but surpremely talented artists. Her work is breathtakingly beautiful and realistic, but like many of us, she's not someone who pushes her work forward. Therefore I felt it was time I put it in the spotlight with an artist interview!
Before we go to the interview, I also want to point out that Karen's fabulous work at Trenance Cottages exhibition won her both 2nd and 3rd place in the 'Best in Show' vote with ‘Tiger – Splash of Power’ (below) and ‘Lion – Savana Siesta’ (above). Testament to the quality of her work!
I have been creating art all my life, as a child I loved drawing and painting. Growing up I was surrounded by the beauty of Cornwall and by the many amazing artist creating stunning landscape paintings. This inspired me so much, I spent most of my adult life painting landscapes and selling them in several local galleries around Devon and Cornwall. Predominantly I sold my work in ‘Newquay Galleries’ which closed several years ago and also ‘The Strand Gallery’ in Brixham Devon, where I sold my work for many years until I took a break from art in 2015 after my mum passed away, she was also an artist and I found I couldn’t paint without all the sadness of loosing her overwhelming me.
Then in 2020 during lockdown I ventured back into art but drawing rather than painting, first in pastels then in coloured pencil and discovered I absolutely loved drawing, it was like going back to my childhood! I’d always been fascinated with wildlife artists and decided to try and combine my love of art and animals. To my amazement I started getting commissions from people to draw their pets. I really love drawing wildlife and pet portraits but I still have a yearning to get back into landscape painting and am hoping to spend 2025 dabbling with paint and landscapes a lot more, as well as my animal drawings.
2. Your work is stunningly realistic. What is it about this form of painting which captures your imagination?
I’ve always loved realism, I would spend hours in galleries when I was younger and it was the realistic landscape artwork always that inspired me. My landscape paintings were less detailed than my wildlife art but still in a realistic style. I just love the idea of recreating what I see and creating my own version of a landscape or an animal. Ideally I would love to combine the two, landscapes with wildlife in their natural habitat.
It would probably be the very first landscape painting I sold, I was around 17 and my parents hung my paintings on the walls in their hotel and someone bought one, it was the best feeling in the world, someone liking my art enough to buy it and hang it on their wall! I think I was hooked from that moment!
4. This next question is a tricky one, but it's one I've been pondering for a while. How do you define success as an artist?
I actually find this question the easiest to answer, for me, success is about loving the art you create, the process and the finished piece and the wonderful feeling you get when people tell you how much they love your work. Selling the work is the icing on the cake, it’s what we all want as artists. I think for me, probably because of ‘imposter syndrome’ I’ve never considered being a full time artist, it’s always been along side a job or bringing up my children when they were young.
5. Inspiration is an important part of creating art, but also so is evolving and growing as an artist. How do you develop your art skills?
I agree inspiration is a really important part of creating art, but I think probably the most important part of growing as an artist is practice, practice, practice! People often say to me they wish I could draw/paint, but I believe anyone could learn to draw or paint if they have the passion and the willingness to learn and practice. Very few artists become successful without years of honing their skills, most artists are always developing and improving, no matter how long they have been creating their art. Taking art lessons from artists that inspire you is also a great way to learn new techniques and grow as an artist. I didn’t really have any art lessons when I was younger for my landscape painting but I wish I had, I think my art would have improved much quicker if I’d taken lessons and learnt new painting techniques. However I took art lesson tutorials for my animal drawings, learning new techniques definitely helped me develop quicker as a coloured pencil artist. I think learning new techniques to create art is important for growing and developing as an artist.
I love this interview and can relate to many of the points that Karen makes. The purety of just wanted to paint and create something beautiful, is inside most of us as artists and reminds us about striping back how we feel about being an artist and why we are doing it in the first place.
I also particularly enjoy the point that inspiration and creative is important, but actually so is practice, practice, practice. I think a lot of us suffer from having the time to achieve that. Karen as well as myself created art outside our day job and that, as well as daily life, severely restricts the amount of time we have to paint and therefore to practice our skill. It's certainly something I've found to be very beneficial this year as I have focused on night paintings only, it's allowing me to hone in on my niche and improve this style of painting.
A huge thank you to Karen for this interview and the gorgeous images - I love them and I hope you do too!
