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Paula Vaughan

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Paula Vaughan

Artist Biography

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Paula Vaughan

Working in her studio near Memphis, Paula Vaughan paints art, prints and posters that evoke the gentleness of another age. Her paintings are soft, romantic reminiscences of everyday life-the warm beauty of a hand-sewn quilt, floral, children, and ladies dressed in Victorian styles. Her paintings are serene, feminine, and romantic, capturing a mood that is both timeless and nostalgic. "My paintings are just of simple, everyday things that I hope people can look at and enjoy,' says Vaughan in her typically modest fashion. "It's fun for me to see people relate my paintings to themselves and to their lives.' Vaughan, who has been painting for 30 years, clearly loves what she does. "Even if I never got paid for it, I would paint for the rest of my life,' she says. "I really don't know why I paint; I just love it. It's such an integral part of my life that I paint six days a week.'

This emotional involvement in her work is reflected in every facet of her art, prints and posters. "My art tends toward the decorative side,” she says. "It is very feminine art, and women are the ones who normally buy it. I do get a lot of ideas for paintings, so I try to vary my prints. Still, I do paint one wedding piece and one Christmas piece every year. I always keep my audience in mind regardless of what I am painting.” Vaughan draws her inspiration from the things she knows first-hand, a trait that she has exhibited since she first took up painting. "A lot of the first pieces I did were from down in Mississippi where my grandparents lived,” she says. "I started by painting the barns there. Then I started painting quilts because they were in my grandmother's house. I would throw a quilt over a chair and take pictures, then I'd come home and paint. My first painting of women quilting was of my grandmother and the lady who lived across the road from her. I have always tried to paint things I know, and that was what I knew more than anything else.”

Vaughan started out in oils, changed to watercolors, and seven years ago returned to oils because of the flexibility of the medium. "When I first started painting, I only painted with neutral colors-browns and sepias,” she says. "Then I started taking watercolor classes. That brought color into my paintings because it was too hard to do watercolors in sepia tones. I also started doing a lot of flowers and other subjects that dictated that I bring soft colors in. Later, when I went back to my oils, my colors were a lot stronger than they had been originally. What I really want in my paintings today is a lot of depth, with light and shadow,” she adds. "A lot of times the light in a picture is more important than color. I love the dark and the light and the depth you get from that. So I am striving to bring my pictures alive with light rather than a lot of color.” Vaughan often starts her art, prints and posters by taking photographs. For example, she says, "I went down to Florida not long ago and took pictures of my granddaughter, who is taking ballet, in different poses. I will use those photos as a starting point. Often I do sketches from photographs for the initial part of a painting. Then I'll start free handing and putting in what I want. The rest of it is really spontaneous and from my imagination.”

Paula Vaughan Art, Prints and Posters Collection