Local artist Sonya Gordon offers art enthusiasts a unique artistic voice steeped in nostalgia, using realism and impressionism to convey her subjects in oil, acrylic, and watercolor. While Gordon is an oil painter, she diversifies her Americana-themed portfolio with acrylic and watercolor work.

Gordon, who began oil painting at the age of seven, studied art at the University of Southern Mississippi. Having to pause pursuing a degree to raise her children after becoming widowed, she completed her degree at Athens State University in 2008.

“I lost my husband at a very young age. I had two kids, and so I didn’t get to finish my degree until I was 48 or 50,” said Gordon. “I wouldn’t teach until I had that degree in my hand from Athens State, so I didn’t start teaching until I was around 50.”

Gordon began teaching classes in a small at-home studio after completing her degree. Now, as the manager at High Cotton Arts, she offers low-cost weekly oil and watercolor classes. Aspiring artists and hobbyists at any skill or experience level are welcome to sign up for Gordon’s classes.

She explained “in the process of teaching watercolor, I have learned how to paint upside down and backward, which is probably a better way of doing it,” due to stimulating the right creative side of the brain along with the logical left side of the brain.

Utilizing this skill allows Gordon to demonstrate painting techniques to students without having access to a wall projector, while also stretching her abilities as an artist by having to look at her work from a different angle.

Gordon’s watercolor classes are offered for $20, and she supplies all the necessary materials to students. Her oil classes are $100 for four classes, and she supplies everything except the canvas.

“You just bring yourself, and they call it their therapy. They come in and do their two-hour class, and they learned something,” said Gordon.

After class, some students will go home and redo what they did in class after using the class instruction as practice.

She said, “if you go home and do it again, it usually comes out better.”

During classes, she teaches compositions, color, values, mixing, and canvas prepping, among other skills.

For oil classes, “most of my students are working on two paintings at a time because you get to a point where you have to stop and put that one away and bring out the next one because it has to dry, since not everyone can paint alla prima,” she explained.

Unlike the watercolor classes where Gordon leads everyone in the same painting, the oil classes offer students more flexibility. Students are encouraged to bring photos in that they have taken of landscapes, architecture, etc. and then use their photos as a reference when painting.

Gordon will walk around and assist students during both watercolor and oil classes as they work.

“I help them see what they can’t see,” said Gordon. “That is my job, to help you see what you’re not seeing, and for some reason God just blessed me with that ability to be able to do it.”

She teaches her students that without correct values — the amount of light or darkness in the paint — their color choices don’t matter.

“Value is more important than color, honestly. You don’t have all your values right? Then it doesn’t matter if you know your colors or what colors you use,” explains Gordon.

She exemplified abstracts and how colors, values, and composition are pertinent to creating an engaging abstract work.

There are color combinations that look better than some when creating abstracts. “But it still has to have a composition. You want someone to look at it and stay engaged with the painting,” said Gordon. “That’s what you want as an artist, is for people to stay looking at it, and that’s what will make someone buy a piece of art and get emotionally attached to it.”

As a teacher, Gordon recognizes that every student has unique instructional needs.

“I think everybody learns in a different way and if you can connect with them and figure out what their strengths are in creating and as being an artist,” she said. “Everybody’s drawn towards something different, and that’s great.”

She went on to say, “don’t ever sell yourself short. Another thing that I’m good at is I’m a natural-born encourager. I can get it out of them. I can pull things out of people that they didn’t know they could do.”

She encourages anyone interested to sign up for a class, even if they don’t view themselves as artistically inclined because “everybody has it in them. We are created to be creators. I mean, it’s just an innate ability, you might not realize it.”

She went on to say, “come and give it a try, and you will be surprised at what you can get out of yourself.”