Artist Spotlight: Krystal W. Brown

How did you get started and then develop your career?

Krystal W. Brown: As a young child I was artistically inclined and constantly compelled to draw, paint, and create. It was a way to self soothe that resulted in something beautiful that others could appreciate and connect to.

My parents, friends, and teachers from grade school throughout college encouraged and inspired me to pursue my passion, and I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art and went on to pursue art professionally as a portrait artist.

I sought out and participated in local art leagues, attended portrait groups, facilitated live model sessions, painted in plein air, and worked on developing my drawing continually.

I took workshops and learned from generous master painters, all accomplished artists who have influenced my work and inspired me with nuggets of gold that have become part of the treasure trove of techniques I create with and share.

I’ve been better able to sense where I am artistically and where I need to go by entering competitions, participating in juried events, attending conventions, and painting with others.

Covering miles and miles of linen with paint helps too. It has all combined to enabled the cultivation of skills that have brought my art to where it is today.

How do you describe success?

Being able to share, encourage and inspire others, collaborate with like-minded individuals and contribute something beautiful is success and pure joy for me.

I love honoring the ideal of a thing and being able to reveal its beauty as I commune with the divine and seek to offer the world something beautiful while doing good with what I bring. It’s effortless when I’m painting out in nature and focusing on a single view, engulfed by the elements and immersed in the sound, scent, taste and feel of everything that contributes to that scene. When that is perceived spiritually, physically, and mentally, magic happens, and it’s contagious.

Making the world better for my having been here would be the ultimate success, and that’s the legacy I’d choose to leave with my art and influence.

How do you find inspiration?

It’s everywhere and anywhere when you open up to seeing it.

Finding harmony, comfort and simplicity in any scene is thrilling, and I find it inspiring that through the painting process, sorrows are consoled and joys are amplified.

To be completely present while creating is a glorious thing. You are immune from the past and un-influenced by the future.

What is the best thing about being an artist?

The delightful process of seeking and finding beauty that transcends time anywhere. Capturing the sense and feel of it in everything, even the mundane.

To beautifully create passages of marks and color that celebrate the simplest things is what the artist does, and it inspires others to see a different view.

I find it pretty cool that I can share my perspective with another and allow them the opportunity to experience it and add themselves to the narrative.

The process and the making of art is for me, but the results of that creativity is for someone else, and why I say:

“Someone is waiting for what you will bring to the world. Why keep them waiting?”

To see more of Krystal’s work, visit: www.krystalbrownfineart.com