Sherry McVickar
Perfect
My barn paintings make us see with new eyes something we otherwise take for granted. A friend looking at my paintings said, “They fill me with a sense of comfort.”
I come to painting barn portraits from an artisan’s point of view. I have been a builder since I was four years old. The technique of applying paint as I do with a palette knife is very similar to that of taping and mudding ‘rock. It’s all in the wrist.  My painting style is characterized by building up thick layers of paint on the canvas, a technique called impasto. I sit in the shade on a warm, cloudless day with a cold drink and my devoted dog by my side, listening to the birds, bees, and animal conversations. The Muse and I get along famously. I love  archaic architecture. I love to see how the pioneer, the settler, the caveman, the explorer built “back in the day”. Barn construction has more charm than a house because we see its skeleton, joints, and musculature. They are living entities to me. Barns are like pigs: every part is used but the squeal.  Every part of a barn is built to be used. That is the secret of the fascination of the barn. Men respond to its cave-ish-ness, women to its nest-like capabilities. But all people say: “Think of the stuff we can pack in there!” Please join me in seeing and appreciating them for the first time or the thousandth.To see my latest barn paintings, please go to my website: www.barnlady.net.
“These things don’t paint themselves, you know.”

Sherry McVickar
barnlady.net