Atelier Gallery – ARTFOODHOME.COM

NancyRhodesHarper SunflowersAtTheLake NRH

“Sunflowers At The Lake” by Nancy Rhodes Harper

Nancy Rhodes Harper is an artist with a talent for painting people, fun people, quirky cool people… women that you’d like to sit down and talk to because they just seem so interesting! I think this painting is a fabulous deviation for her! I absolutely love this painting, it’s got such nice composition, the sunflowers are so nice and loose yet you know exactly what they are. This is a fabulous painting! Check out Nancy’s website for more paintings, she’s a very talented lady!

Nancy shows her work locally at the Atelier Gallery on King Street, stop in and check it out! She also does paintings for DailyPaintWorks.com, which is a wonderful site, fabulous paintings, if you have the time check it out!

Here is a blip about Nancy from her website NancyRhodesHarperFineArt.com

About The Artist

Alabama Daily Painter

Nancy Rhodes Harper grew up in a small town in the Ozark Mountains surrounded by paint and brushes in her fathers sign shop. She started painting at a very early age. Continuing to study in school Nancy received a BA degree in Art Education from The University of Central Arkansas in 1977. After marriage and her husbands stint in graduate school, the couple landed in Huntsville, Alabama in 1981. Nancy continued to paint and grow as an artist while working in interior design, sign painting and freelancing as an artist. After raising a son with the support of her husband and family Nancy decided to pursue painting full time.
      Nancy has studied with many of the finest artists in the world today, Quang Ho, Kim English, Ken Auster, Nancy Chaboun, Karin Jurick, Carol Marine, Anne Blair Brown, Elio Camacho and The Cumberland Socity Painters (Dawn Whitelaw-Roger Dale Brown-Michael Shane Neal-Paula Frisbee- Pam Padgett).
       Nancy’s love of portraying people while they go about their daily lives while capturing a small moment in time is what keeps her excited as an artist. Using bold color, lush descriptive brushstrokes and very often whimsy Nancy sets about doing what she loves. Painting everyday!
      Nancy Rhodes Harper’s work is collected in many states across America as she continues to grow and study on her journey as an artist.

Catch you back here tomorrow!

Grandfather Carlson’s Place by Julia Ralston

I have my husband to thank for this one… he knows I’m always on the lookout for artists, recipes, ideas… and he suggested Julia! Well, thank you Fred… soon I’m going to have to change the name of this blog to include you…!

Julia has fabulous wide, loose strokes, nice and free. She’s able to leave out a lot of the little detail that ends up making a painting look fussy… I love that about her paintings! Here in Charleston, Julia is represented by the Atelier Gallery (also in Asheville, NC! Note: Link is no longer viable so it’s been removed)… so check her out… if you aren’t in the area give her website a look, you won’t be disappointed!

Summer Light by Julia Ralston

A blip about Julia from her website…

Julia Ralston was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. As a teenager she was often found reading or drawing and toting a sketchbook and journal to camp and family vacations. Encouraged by her artistic maternal grandmother and an enthusiastic high school art teacher, Julia entered Indiana University as a Fine Arts major, graduated in 1981 with a B.S. in Finance, and went to work for a major bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Julia travels frequently and in each place she gathers reference material for her paintings. Working en plein air and in the studio using her own photographs and sketches, Julia’s work expresses movement and color using loose brushwork and a variety of application methods. This vitality translates well to a variety of subject matter. Julia has studied with Scott Christensen, Stuart Shils, and Peggy Kroll-Roberts to name a few, and well as with her mentor, Andrew Braitman. She maintains a summer studio in the North Carolina mountains and winters in the South Carolina lowcountry. If she’s not in the studio, you can find her out on the trail stalking birds and new compositions.

“The painting process is a game for me; making decisions using value, color and variety of line appeals to me in a way that wordsmiths feel about writing poetry or crafting a story. I try to be attentive to nuance of light and sense of place… it’s fantastic when brush stroke and color resurrect a memory or transport to a particular field or country road.”

Great work Julia! Catch you back here tomorrow!

Links updated 2/24/25