Harvest Gold Gallery is thrilled to welcome back Diane Scott, an impressionistic painter based out of Conway, New Hampshire! Scott is a master of capturing light and tone within her artwork, making it some of the most captivating work in the Gallery. Her loose brushstrokes coupled with the vibrancy of color in her work brings her subject matter to life, and invites the viewer to sit and contemplate the piece for a while.

An impressionistic painter, Scott moved from Canada to New England and became a full-time painter in 1996. Scott received her BFA from Herts College of Art and Design in St Albans, England in 1985. She continued on to study at the North River Arts Society under John Kilroy for six years. She has taught various workshops to demonstrate her distinctive style of oils. Her extensive list of accolades includes Juror’s Awards from the Cape Cod Art Association and Best Marine Painting awards from the North River Arts Society.

Scott says that her paintings “take on a life of their own” during the creation process. Often beginning her work plein air (outside, painting what is seen at that moment), Scott tries to get a good base of form and color, and understanding of the movement of the subject matter. Once this is done, she takes her work inside to finish it up! This is where the piece comes to life through Scott’s use of rich color and painterly brush strokes. Trying to attain photo-realism limits the impact a painting can have on a viewer, Scott argues. In getting lost in replicating exact details, you can lose the feelings and memories that the art should be able to convey.

While Scott will forever love painting landscapes, she has said that she has been drawn to portraiture lately. “I used to paint figures all the time, and I loved it! There are so many subtle lights and shadows in the skin and on the curves of the body,” Scott says, “It is a fantastic challenge to paint the human form!”

Scott has attended and painted at two previous Plein Air Paint Outs at Harvest Gold this summer, and her last subject matter was a man who had stopped by to watch her work. Working in layers upon layers of oil paint, Scott built up reds, pinks, yellows, creams, and browns to capture the man’s face stunningly. “When I come back on the 11th, I don’t know what I might paint,” Scott said, “I am going to walk on over, and paint whatever captures my eye. I like that art is spontaneous like that!”