Beauty from the Stroke of Her Brush

Being an only child presented Claire Carlson with challenges to keep busy, while helping her discover a talent and love for painting.

Carlson's artistic journey began with pictures she saw hanging on the walls. She would take the photos off the walls and paint them. She also painted photographs she saw in magazines. “I amused myself that way," she said.

Fast forward to adulthood and Carlson was trekking around the globe. Joyful memories traveling with her husband, now deceased, keep her spirits high and appreciation for painting alive. “We went to shows and traveled in an RV camper,” said Carlson.

Carlson even recalls her very first sale.

“A lady started a gallery in Glenside and she bought one to display. I was just thrilled," Carlson said. "I remember I got $60 – it was the most I ever made on my painting, it was a nature scene.”

Through the years, Carlson has received prizes and ribbons for her paintings. Nature and flowers in watercolor are Carlson's forte, although she loves variety and always looks for new material. She set up a studio area in her apartment by a window where she feels inspired to create. Her vibrant colors are distinctive to her style.

And what is Carlson working on at the moment?

“I'm working on a baby now, I never painted a baby,” she said. “I like variety, you get bored with one type of painting.”

During Carlson's traveling to beaches and other scenic places, she took hundreds of photographs that she reproduces with the strokes of her brush. She's been to Ireland and Spain with her husband and has many photographs from that time which she has painted.

“When I get into painting I get lost in it – time flies by," she said. "It's good for anyone to have something they are really interested in and I think creation is very important, very fulfilling."

One of Carlson's daughters is also a painter and she has many memories of them painting together and showing their work at craft shows.

Carlson recently began monthly art instruction classes for residents of in Hatboro, where she lives.

One of Carlson's students, Fran Metzler, said she enjoys art but doesn't have the patience for watercolor. Metzler loves sketching and said it's very relaxing.

“It's nice to be creative,” she said. Metzler said she looks forward to seeing the new paintings Carlson finishes and loves seeing them outside the door where Carlson hangs them for visitors to see.

Eleanor Parichuk also enjoyed sketching during her first class with Carlson.

“I only sketched when I was a kid but I always liked it,” Parichuk said. “I do plan to come back for the next class.”

Carlson's advice for anyone wanting to try something - even if it's not art - is to not be afraid of criticism.

“If you don’t try, you'll never know," she said. Mainly, she encourages trying something as fun and you just might find a hidden talent. “I like to see (my students) do what they want to do and not what I think they should."

A woman who recently died took a few of Carlson's classes and kept thanking her because she was so happy about painting. Carlson said she loved the class so much and never realized she had a talent for it.

“So many people are so afraid of experimenting. In art,” she said, “there is no good or bad – if you enjoy it, you just keep improving.”