Dale Farrington traded in her hairbrush for a paintbrush in the 90s to paint and hasn’t looked back.
Farrington, 71, will be the featured artist at City Art Works, located at 701 Main Street, with an artist reception from 1 until 4 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 17. Her exhibit will run through Nov. 30.
“My brother’s a really good artist in Dallas, and I’ve always watched him and thought, ‘Oh I wish I could paint like you do,’” she said. “He asked, ‘Have you ever picked up a brush?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I’ve drawn all my life, but I never started painting until 1992.”
She paints from photographs and whatever she likes, she photographs it and paints from that, she said.
She paints pastels and watercolors; her favorite is acrylics, she said.
The wine painting was inspired by a table setting at a mother-daughter event in Colorado, Farrington says. She attended the event with her daughter, with whom she reconnected with after 50 years.
“That was just one of the things they had set up against a wall,” she said of the painting. “I loved it, so I took a picture of it and painted it.”
Another painting that will be on display is one from her family’s photo collection.
“That was painted from my grandmother’s house,” she said. “It was an older photograph my family had taken. That was in Texas.”
She studied under Rocky Ferris in Florida, who taught her how to hone her technique.
“I had painted everything but the faces, and I said I need to learn how to paint,” she recalls.
“I painted my brother’s face four different times before I got it like I wanted it.”
She came upon City Art Works when her daughter came to visit her, she said. They came through Minden, went out to eat and happened upon the art center.
“We walked in, and she told Bill (Cook), ‘My mother’s an artist too,’ and they invited me to bring some of my work,” she said. “They looked at it, they accepted me and I love it.”
All of her paintings will be for sale throughout the exhibit, she said.