By Bella Erakko
Not every artist picks up a paintbrush as soon as they can hold a crayon. Though Veronica Brown’s parents knew that colored pencils or crayons were guaranteed to be successful gifts, she didn’t see herself as an artist. For Alliance Art Gallery’s July guest artist, that began in 2002. Strolling through Michael’s, she drifted down the clearance aisle and saw an oil painting book, Bob Ross style, written by Dorothy Dent who just happened to live in Republic, Missouri. Intrigued, she drove three hours for a one-day class. “I had no supplies. It was a palette knife class. I didn’t even know what a palette knife was.” A gentleman in the class told her afterwards he was thoroughly impressed with her work. Veronica laughed. “I decided it was like icing a cake—and I had done quite a bit of that.”
Even as a child, Veronica had a knack for composition eventually becoming a design draftsman. As she explored art, she quickly learned she couldn’t paint copyrighted images, so she added photography to her repertoire, often hovering under bushes to capture birds. But her favorite subjects are western scenes, farming, horses, and cattle. Why? “I grew up spending a lot of time with grandpa outside. He had a small hog business, raised cattle, owned draft horses. He didn’t work them like his father. He hitched them for wagon rides or to demo old farming practices—threshing, pressing sorghum to make molasses, hay bailing. “I spend a lot of time with horses. You can see their mood and capture it.” In fact, she pays great attention to their eyes. The viewer can feel the connection in her paintings.
Today she participates in plein air events. Different than photography, she watches how light affects things, and how one can paint shapes rather than objects. “You don’t need every detail.” Honing her skill, she has begun to win awards locally and at national shows. For the past seven years, she has designated February as “one-painting-a-day” month. After all, there’s not a lot going on in winter.
The clearance aisle in Michael’s may seem a long time ago, but she has come a long way from icing a canvas like a cake.
