Sharon Estes
2D Instructor | Painting
Sharon Estes is a self-taught, emerging artist living in Rhode Island. She creates in two mediums -- hand-printed watercolor white line woodcuts, also known as Provincetown Prints; and acrylic paintings in a style she calls "Technicolor Realism," which uses bright, saturated color, depicting images in a way that they are representative of the object, just not in a traditional realist manner. Sharon lives in East Greenwich, RI with her cat, Ittybitty. Creativity has always been a part of Sharon's life, and in 2018, at the age of 57, she picked up a paint brush and never looked back.
Artist Statement
"The use of color in my paintings is of paramount importance to me. Through color I have sought to concentrate on beauty and happiness, rather than on man's inhumanity to man." - Alma Thomas
COLOR is the main element of my paintings - vibrant, cheerful, dynamic color. Vibrant red, dynamic orange, cheerful yellow, bright turquoise, and all the colors in between. I love them all!
My work is meant to provide a bright spot in the viewer's life -- to make them smile, bring them joy, inspire them. If I can touch a person's life in this way, I have fulfilled the goal and purpose of my work.
Provincetown Prints and Process
My prints are inspired by the Provincetown Printers white line woodcuts. While my prints are more contemporary in subject and feel, I believe they remain true to the spirit of these early artistic pioneers.
The Provincetown Printers were an art colony established in Provincetown, MA in the early 1900's. They developed a unique way of making multi-color woodcut prints with one block instead of several as in Japanese printmaking. The white line woodcut is widely considered the sole American woodcut technique. Early white line woodcut artists include Blanche Lazzell, Julius Olsson Nordfeldt, Ethel Mars, and Edna Boies Hopkins.
To make a print, an outline of a drawing is carved into a block of wood. Paper is taped or thumb tacked onto the block so it will not move when printing. One area of the block at a time is painted with watercolor and then hand-burnished onto the paper with a spoon or baren while the paint is still wet. I repeat this process until the entire block is printed and continue to add layers until I achieve the depth and vibrant colors of my prints. Depending on size, each print takes several hours to several days to create.
**IMPORTANT: Since each print from a block is hand painted and hand printed, there will be variations in the color and texture of each print. This is called a Varied Edition or V.E.