Hi! I’m Barbara Coleman.
One of my biggest joys in life is designing a painting. And studying great paintings.
I love to paint plein air to get ideas, color studies, and source references. I take all this information, plus my memories and feelings about a place, and start coming up with ideas for compositions in the studio. I explore a variety of formats and ideas for placement and size of the elements of the painting.
I draw, make notans, value studies, and gouaches of my subject. I love preparing to paint and developing an idea fully. It is thrilling to make blobs of paint come alive, evoking the emotions I feel and expressing the soul of a place.
I want to create visual poetry. I have no interest in approaching painting like a journalist, needing to record every factual detail I see.
Learn more about the things that really make me want to paint, my approach, and more!
The first time I was consciously aware of Beauty was many years ago.
At 17, I was grieving the untimely death of my father. I was anxious and afraid and hid myself in the shade near some roses. I remember fixing my gaze upon a rose. As I focused on that flower, a subtle shift occurred within me. I felt myself settle; I felt like I belonged. The petals of the rose were luminous as sunlight filtered through them. The patterns of light and shadow mesmerized me. I began to see shapes of air between the leaves, and to follow the contours of the rose with my eyes. The rose enchanted me. It embodied Beauty. My grief seemed to have expanded my capacity to perceive it. Paying such close attention to the rose connected me to everything. I felt like we were all One. From then on, I learned that if I can see Beauty, I know everything will be alright.
How I got started painting
As a child living outside of Paris, my parents took my brothers and me to the art museums almost every weekend. I think visiting museums gave my brothers a case of “art poisoning”.
The art museums provided me with something much more: squirrels. Metaphorical ones, anyway. As squirrels are endlessly fascinating to a dog, paintings are that fascinating to me. And to top it off, I saw paintings by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Bazille, Millet and Corot, who had all lived in or around Fontainebleau. (I went to school in Fontainebleau, and we lived in Barbizon- in the middle of the King’s Forest.) I saw their paintings of “my” forest and was completely enchanted by how they captured the spirit of my own backyard. That was the first spark.
I studied painting in Aix-en-Provence, France during my junior year in college- taking a break from the Great Books program at St. John’s College. I truly found my North Star that year. I painted in watercolors. (Imagine a student version of Cezanne’s watercolors, no washes, just spots of color in the shadows, leaving the white of the paper to act as the light.)
After returning to New Mexico, I enrolled in the University of New Mexico (UNM) to study French, art studio, architecture, and got a Master’s in Community and Regional Planning.
Fast forward to working for the City of Albuquerque as an Urban Designer and City Planner, and having two beautiful children. With the demands of work and family, I needed a more patient medium to work in. I switched from watercolor to pastels. Pastels are dry. Pastels can handle interruptions (better than I can). I painted “nap time” paintings when the kids took their afternoon rest.
I worked exclusively in pastels for over twelve years. I was honored to be a Signature member of the Pastel Society of America and showed my pastels in several galleries across the country.
A couple of years after my sabbatical, I left teaching at UNM. I enjoyed every minute of teaching studios, but I needed more time to paint.
I jumped off the proverbial cliff, leaving the security and benefits of being faculty. Showing continuously in several galleries and having solo shows gave me the confidence to make that leap. I have the heart of an entrepreneur and I managed my husband and my ecological restoration business, restoring rivers and wetlands. We had a large nursery as well. Managing the business allowed me to make my own schedule, and my priority was to create regular, uninterrupted time to paint.
In those years, my studio time dove-tailed with the schedule of the yellow school bus picking the kids up in the morning and returning them to me late in the afternoon. My Muse had to kick in between those yellow school bus stops, no excuses. I painted zealously for my galleries and for juried exhibitions.
My children are grown, and we sold our ecological restoration business years ago. The daily problems I get to solve now are rich visual design challenges in my art.
Creating art is the most engaging, compelling, and fascinating thing in the world for me to study and practice.
I resonate with this sentiment by Winston Churchill:
“When I get to heaven, I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject.”
I think I will join him!
Recently Featured In: Wildcard Artist Chats with Scott Christensen
Enjoy my conversation with renowned artist Scott Christensen on Adventure of Painting’s Wildcard Artist Chats.
Scott has been a good friend and mentor to me for many years, and it was a true delight to engage with Scott in this interview!
Membership in National Art Associations
Signature Member of Oil Painters of America
Signature Member American Impressionist Society
Signature Member of Pastel Society of America
Signature Member of Plein Air Painters of New Mexico, President 2024
Associate Member, Women Artists of the West
Selected Juried and Invitational Exhibitions, Awards, and Honors
Connect with me on Instagram!
