Artwork by Sara Waugh

Artist Statement - Paintings

I enjoy capturing on canvas the concrete elements of life surrounding me – be it a piece of fruit, a friend, or a photograph. I choose to work with oil paint on canvas for these explorations of life because I enjoy the limitless choice of color as well as the malleability and textured quality of oils. The paint allows me to work quickly and spontaneously to capture initial impressions of my subject, or to work in a more methodical way, layering paint over the course of days. The paint itself is also always a subject in my paintings.

To apply the paint to the canvas, I use a palette knife and a wide range of brushes. Turpentine is my primary medium and occasionally, linseed oil. Some paintings are painted from life, others from photographs or from memory. My oil paintings include still-life images, landscapes, and portraits.

My current works are a mix of still life images and cityscapes of San Francisco. For the still life images, I choose objects, especially fruits, which allow me to fully explore the rich range of colors and textures of the oil paint. For the cityscapes, I work from color photographs of San Francisco that I take while exploring the city. Once I start painting, I will change the composition of the image and even the colors in order to dramatize the beauty and mood of the moment initially caught on film. I invite the viewer to enjoy the voluptuous richness of life captured in these paintings.

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