Press

Libertyville artist conveys powerful images in her landscapes

August 4, 2006
Publication: News Sun, The (Waukegan, IL)
Section: LIFE
Page: 24

By: Kelly Mahoney

Even though Libertyville artist Donna Sands loves her job, she still has to motivate herself.
"All I have to do is walk into my studio and there are at least three pieces waiting to be done," Sands said. "Then it's all consuming."
Sands has 26 years of painting experience under her belt, but for the past four years, she has exclusively painted landscapes, mostly in Lake County and Wisconsin. Sands said she loves the powerful images in nature.

"I love being out there," Sands said. "It is a time when all five senses are totally filled when I'm out in the field painting."
In order to teach others how to convey the balance of nature in art, Sands taught an outdoor painting class at the College of Lake County. Students met at various locations in Lake County to capture the scenery and receive critique.

"When you go on vacation and take photographs, they're very contrasty and people will take those and try to paint from them," Sands said. "When you get out in nature, it's not really like that out there."

As Sands' student learned, there are always new landscapes to discover. "I really love the river," Sands said. "When you can get on a bridge over it with the way the sunlight hits it .. The contrast with the two is just so much fun to play with on the canvas." Sands said she would like to paint a single location each season."The whole harmony of the landscape and how the trees meet the sky will be totally different," Sands said. There are specific goals Sands has in mind when creating her 150 art pieces per year. "The creative process is maintaining the harmony that's in nature and abstracting with color," Sands said. Even when drawing as a child, Sands said she was attracted to vibrant colors. "I would take that crayon and push it so hard because I wanted that intense block of color," Sands said. Sands paints 40 hours per week year round. "Basically, what I do is, I do rough sketches out in the field and from these rough sketches, I work up the big pieces at the studio in my home," Sands said. A sketch on a half sheet of watercolor paper takes about two and a half hours for Sands to complete, but the bigger pieces can several weeks. Sands said her part-time job at the Robert T. Wright Community Gallery of Art at CLC helps her stay connected to other artists." Meeting the artists and seeing the creativity and just being totally involved in the community of art (is what I like about my job)," Sands said. "Being in a creative environment just day to day is really important to me."

Even her two children, Johanna, 11, and Alexander, 16, get involved with her work. "My son is into electronics and the computer is his medium," Sands said. "My daughter is great at drawing. She's actually my best critic, especially when I'm trying to maintain the harmony she'll come down and tell me where the discord is. My daughter comes to outdoor shows with me sometimes and helps." When Sands first started selling her work at shows and galleries, she said it was an emotional experience. "It's like giving away your child and you want to grab it as it starts going away," Sands said. "I'm glad it's going to a good home, though."

For Sands' 12 students, the outdoor art was an experience in more than just painting. "You can absorb the environment you can really get the feel (when painting outdoors)," Sands said. "When you look back at the painting, you can smell what it was like. No matter how abstract you get, it's more representational of nature."

Donna Sands, Libertyville, has been painting professionally for five years and teaching for three. Donna Sands, Libertyville, has been painting professionally for five years and teaching for three.

The world, the way she sees it

BY MYRNA PETLICKI CONTRIBUTOR
Published: July 1, 2004

Once in a great while, someone attending an art fair will stare at one of Donna Sands' oil paintings and say to the Libertyville artist, "Purple trees? Excuse me!" That doesn't bother Sands, who paints the world the way she sees it.

"I start with nature," Sands said. "I keep the harmony of nature -- the relationship of the sky to the trees, the trees to the land -- but I abstract the color." That is because Sands is a "color equivalent painter." She describes that as "using color to create a feeling or a mood. It's not necessarily what is there." She cites the example of the bark of the birch tree. "A lot of times it's a very pink, warm color. I will take that and push it even further. Other times you will find that my trees are purple. But it is creating the shadow, the darkness of dense wood." In "Northern Woods" the slender trunks of towering trees are painted in vivid tones that don't imitate nature and yet help convey the feeling of sun streaming through a forest. Purple storm clouds are brewing over an orange field in the evocative "Gate to Heaven." Splashes of red and purple find their way into the trees in "The Path Ahead."

Sands attributes her interest in creating art to the people who lived near her in Chicago's DePaul area, where she grew up. "What was fascinating about the neighborhood is that right after World War II, a lot of artists started migrating to this area because it was close enough to downtown and the galleries, yet it was affordable rent," she said. "On my block alone, there were four or five artists living." One of them was Seymour Rosofsky, a co-founder of the Old Town Art Fair. "At the age of 4, I used to walk up and down the block watching these artists pack up their stuff for the show," Sands said. "It was at that time that I decided I really wanted to be an artist."

Sands first did something about that desire while attending Immaculata High School for one year. It was her sophomore year, and she encountered a wonderful teacher "who drew me out of my shell," Sands said. At that time, Sands did realistic work using mainly acrylic paints. Sands studied commercial art in college and started a design business about 15 years ago, specializing in brochure and package design. In 2001, Sands closed her business. Since then, she has painted full time. "I have gone back to my calling," she said. To further develop her talent, Sands has taken classes with a couple of Woodstock artists. In addition, she paints on Door County's Washington Island for a week every year with three other women who are color equivalent painters. This fall, she will begin classes toward her master's degree in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "I was told you need five years of pushing and getting your name out there, and showing your work. Then things start clicking for you," Sands said. "I'm in year three, and things are clicking." That includes a show, "The Midwest through the Eyes of a Color Equivalent Painter," that opens today (Thursday) at Uncommon Ground, a combination coffeehouse, cafe, performance venue and exhibit space at 1214 W. Grace St., Chicago. Sands is also exhibiting work at 15 juried art fairs this summer, including ones in Lincolnshire (Fourth of July weekend), Park Ridge (July 10-11), Wilmette (July 17-18), Geneva (July 24-25) and Chicago's Gold Coast Art Fair (Aug. 6-8).

Additionally, Sands, the mother of two children (Alexander, 15, and Johanna, 10), works part-time at the College of Lake County's gallery as assistant director of community events. For six years, the art-history buff did a volunteer program at a local school, showing the work of several artists, talking about it and helping students with a related project. The artist's goal is to get a gallery to represent her. In the meantime, her work is selling at summer art fairs, where Sands enjoys the positive reactions of the majority of viewers. She also has had pieces in a number of group shows. Sands noted that at a June art fair in Barrington a woman stood "beaming as she looked at my artwork." Sands said she enjoyed "watching her expression as she was viewing what I had created." As an added bonus, the woman asked Sands to bring four paintings to her house so she could see how they looked on her wall. That was great news for an artist in the middle of a five-year plan.