Painting soothes artist’s soul
Staff writer
Bonnie Shaw’s walls are crowded with the artistic work of her hands.
A Peabody native, she has expressed herself in paint for years and occasionally takes her art to arts and crafts sales, such as Peabody American Legion Auxiliary’s arts and crafts sale.
Shaw’s canvasses include countryside scenes, lakeside scenes, landscapes, farm scenes, trees, a storm over the plains, a waterfall, butterflies, a cardinal, and most of all, flowers. Some paintings have inspirational messages.
“It’s flowers that I really like to paint,” Shaw said.
Her love of painting isn’t merely that she creates things of beauty. Working on a canvas helps her remove worries of the day from her mind and concentrate on what she’s doing.
Each painting is created from the back of the scene to the front.
She took up painting nine years ago.
“I went to some of those paint nights, and I decided I really liked it,” she said. “It’s relaxing. I just really enjoyed doing it. I tried a lot of crafts, but painting is what I like best.”
She’s given many paintings to people who like them and sold them for about five years. She prefers indoor sales, so there is no need to worry about weather.
She especially likes the American Legion sale because it’s local, and setting up her paintings at a local place is easier. She will sell paintings Dec. 7 at this years Legion Auxiliary arts and crafts sale.
Shaw said there was no “typical” amount of time she spent on her artwork in any given week. The amount of time she spends varies from one week to the next.
Sometimes a painting will hang on her wall for years before she decides to change something about it.
Besides canvas, Shaw has used bottles and wood as a medium for her paintings.