We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Debbie Lewis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Debbie below.
Hi Debbie, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I found my purpose to be an artist almost solely by circumstance — not by design.
I was sick and unable to hold my office job and had an overwhelming lack of energy to do much of anything. I was helping out a friend with some basic computer work from home. I got stuck on how to draw an image on the computer and ended up buying a book on the subject of perspective to handle my inability. This one action opened up a whole new world of art — creating images on a 2D surface that look realistic and three dimensional. I was captivated by this new world and developed an almost obsessive need to practice and get good — really just for the fun of it. But one day when someone asked to buy three of my paintings, I was shocked and honored — but more than that, a light bulb turned on. I am good enough to exchange my art for money and make people happy in the process.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a self-taught watercolor artist. While I eventually did do several workshops and continue to watch videos online by artists I admire, I feel I made the most progress in my skills through hours and hours of practice alone at home. With no one watching me or commenting on what I was doing, I felt free to experiment and simply play with my materials until I figured out how to make them do what I wanted.
At some point, I started being told by my collectors that my style is easily recognizable. I found that to be very interesting because I wasn’t aware that I had developed a unique style. I was simply doing what seemed like the right thing to get a good result.
In recent years, I started being told that my paintings made people smile. That’s when I realized that making people happy was actually my purpose and the reason why I paint. So the fact that that is the effect that my paintings produce now makes me happy and inspires me to keep painting so I can make more people smile.
After all, there’s enough ugliness in today’s world, that it’s going to take a lot of people creating beauty and happiness to counteract the bad. To me, that’s something worth waking up to do every morning.
The more people I can make smile the better my life will be too!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Persistence: That is probably the number one quality that took me from being a dabbler to being a professional artist with collectors around the world. Every time I tried to do something new (paint a sky, or paint a tree or paint people), I just kept practicing until the new skill became second nature. Sometimes that meant piles and piles of practice sheets thrown away until I mastered the skill.
It’s interesting to me that if I go a long period of time without painting, I need to spend some time practicing basic skills again till I feel comfortable starting my next actual painting. It’s sort of like riding a bicycle — if you don’t do it for a long time, it takes a little bit to get back up to speed again.
Trying new subjects: Over the years, I’ve gone from landscapes to florals to homes and large public buildings to animals to abstract to musicians and dancers — each new subject required me to learn new skills and try new techniques — all of which forced me to expand my skill set. Now it’s fun to go back to a subject matter that I haven’t done for a while and polish up my skills again.
Keep learning and practicing: I never stop learning from other artists’ videos and books as I have an insatiable thirst to keep growing as an artist. It’s never a matter of “I know how to paint so I can stop learning.” It’s always a question of, “What should I learn next so I can expand my repertoire?” That’s what keeps me going.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
Overwhelm can occur for two main reasons — starting too many projects at once, resulting in too many half-done paintings, or taking on a project that is beyond my current comfort level or skill set.
When I find I have too many incomplete projects, I simply prioritize them either by external demand (for example when customer needs a painting by a specific deadline) or closeness to being done. I then take those projects in order and finish them, one by one. Each time one is done, the overwhelm vanishes.
When I take on something beyond my current skills, I work out exactly what skill it is that I’m missing or weak on and spend some time learning more about it and practicing it. For example if I take on a painting with unusual foliage in it that I haven’t done before, I will Google other artists paintings and videos with that foliage and learn the best way to get the desired effect. Once I isolate each individual skill that I’m missing and practice enough to bring up my ability and confidence, there is no more overwhelm.
In fact, now that I look back, that is how I ended up becoming an artist in the first place. Someone asked me to include a diagram of a bowl in a word processing file. I had no idea how to do this and all my initial attempts failed until I isolated the fact that it was the subject of perspective that was foreign to me. It wasn’t my computer skills that were lacking; it was my understanding of how to draw a bowl in perspective that was completely missing. So I bought my first art book on the subject of perspective and I got hooked!
Creating images that looked three dimensional on a two dimensional surface — wow, that was magical and became my mission in life. How to create magic that makes people smile!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.debbielewiswatercolors.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/debbielewiswatercolors
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbielewiswatercolor (YES — NO S ON THAT ONE)
