Sherri Snyder Watercolors

Sherri Snyder, resident of rural Foster, Rhode Island, is an artist, creative soul, workshop presenter, teacher, and lover of nature. Sherri had the luck of being born into a multi-generational artistic family, from sculptors, to car designers, to illustrators, inventors and photographers. Because of these many artistic influences, she never hesitated exploring a variety of art materials or mediums.

Her primary focus, however for the past 27 years, has been watercolors. She was inspired by her high school commercial design instructor, a watercolorist, but found them extremely challenging to master. This of course did not stop her (she loves a challenge!) Her love and passion for nature comes through in her paintings, which are rich, bold, and expressive. She brings her paints with her ready to capture the essence of what she sees and feels. She has traveled to Greece, Scotland, France, England, Iceland, Ireland, and throughout the US. Her favorite spots are right here in New England. Her paintings offer themes of florals, landscapes, still life portraits of her gardens, farms and barns. 

Her creativity does not stop at painting. She has also mastered the sewing machine (thanks to those home economics classes in middle school,) and is quite facile with fiber arts, creating a variety of wearable and usable items. In her studio and shop, you will find an array of collages, photography, woven rugs, and fiber arts. In the past 2 years, Sherri has even explored the world of “gourds” (inedible, decorative squash.) After visiting Amish country in Ohio, she collected a huge number of gourds and has developed her own unique style of painting on them. Each gourd is a unique canvas. Sherri uses watercolors, leather dyes, acrylic paints and metallic inks to embellish each gourd. They are then protected with 3 layers of a polyurethane coating. Each gourd is unique, some with scenes of farmland or marshes, some with dragonflies or birds, some with leaves, or holiday themes. No two are identical in size or design.

Her true passion is inspiring others in the arts. Sherri has been providing painting and creativity workshops over the past 10 years – her next workshops will be offered at The Silver Circle Gallery in Putnam, CT in the Fall 2011. You may also visit Sherri’s studio and shop at “Hattie’s Country Store” in Foster, RI  www.HattiesCountryStore.com  and www.SherriSnyderWatercolors.com . Surrounding the studio/shop are lush gardens of veggies, flowers, and herbs from which she creates much of the collages, aromatherapy and fiber creations.  For Sherri, gardening is another art form. One visitor asked, “Can I move in?! I just love it here! It is so peaceful.” Feel free to visit, bring a chair, a book, your camera or paints, pick some herbs or flowers, pet the barn cat, and even watch art being created!

Small interesting tidbits of information on Sherri, in case you were curious: She also raises golden retrievers, loves Thai food, and practices yoga on a regular basis. Some of her favorite inspiring websites include: www.Creativity-Portal.com , www.ShariGaynor.com , www.ArtellaLand.com , www.KellyRaeRoberts.com , and www.PlanetSARK.com .

Sherri is extremely excited for her first Festival Fete show, as we are to have her!!

ONE DAY AWAY!  Come out to our next festival, The City Art Festival on August 6, 2011!

Check out The City Art Festival video to see the fabulous artists and vendors who will be at the show!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXedK5Rx7LU&feature=player_embedded]

The City Art Festival is proud to be sponsered by Webster Bank along with City of Providnce, Cardi’s Furniture, RI Monthly, Whole Foods, Natural Awakenings, Yelp and Cat Country-WCTK.