Carol Swetye Janosik
“I always loved color and wanted to paint but had no time or money. I was inspired and encouraged by Cris’ work and began sketching when she shared Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
by Betty Edwards. That same year I selected the Art Easel which included a set of watercolor and acrylic paints as one of the prizes of the Mary Kay Cosmetics quarterly Star Consultants Program. My first painting was an acrylic of my favorite childhood vacation spot: Mount Baldy in Grand Lake, Colorado. It was a gift for my father who had just moved into a nursing home. He was not a happy camper at the time. He looked at my art and replied, “Oh, calendar art.” I immediately called Cris and said “I think I got slammed, what is calendar art?”
While our personalities, media, and styles are different they also complement one another. We encourage each other to grow and to learn and to express and develop our own unique style. We are sisters in art.
Being sisters-in-law and living in different states we spoke by phone often, and as the years went on, we noticed that we had a mutual love of color and art. In 2012 while we were in Fort Madison together, we took a class offered by Pat Wynn. We thoroughly enjoyed it so in 2019 we did it again. We had so much fun that week that we swore to do it every chance we got. We became brave and tried new things. We went plein air painting with comic results, and decided that one needs the proper setup. We even played with acrylic pourings. We learned to laugh at our disasters and urged each other to try something
outside our comfort zones. But it was a watercolor plein air class in Tubac Arizona that cemented our painting relationship and started us thinking about how to grow as artists. When we’re in Ohio we head for Lib’s Market and sketch the folks there. When we’re in Colorado we paint the mountains. When we’re in Iowa we paint the prairie and prairie houses. We always look forward to the next time we’re together and can paint and sketch.
Christine White Swetye
“I think I always dabbled in artsy things. I think I’m most comfortable with a pen, pencil or brush in my hand. I taught myself decorative art from books. I painted the walls, chairs and baskets. I turned rocks into cottages and painted greeting cards to send to my granddaughter. I painted wisteria cascading from vines on the wall to a wrought iron fence, egrets on the stairway wall and a street scene on the wall in the basement. There were grapevines and lizards and chickadees in the kitchen. I’m reminded that I told people that if they stood still too long, I might paint them. And for a short time before I found watercolor and pigment, I painted birds in oils.”
