Susan Florence
watercolorist, author & poet
Susan Florence - Watercolorist, Author & Poet
I grew up an artist, creating cards for friends and family, looking forward to Friday’s art class in grammar school. My poster-paint signs were strung across high school hallways on game days. While earning my college B.A. in Art, I studied various mediums as jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, but earned “ski money” by selling my hand-done watercolors with original verses in boutiques around the Bay Area.
In 1970, my husband and I married, moved to L.A., and started up one of the first alternative greeting card companies, People Productions. My distinctive hand-done watercolors and original verses grew into 100’s of gift products, both with our company and after we sold to C.R. Gibson in 1985.
However, in1998, with the sale of C.R. Gibson to a leading Christian publisher, my card lines, gift book series, and gift products were discontinued as the verses were not of Biblical content.
I closed the door on my office, desk, technical pens and brushes used to create my finely outlined designs and hand-lettered verse, and began a new journey outside, into plein air painting.
Learning from local watercolor teachers: Barbara Greene in Ojai, Sally Miller in Ventura, and Kathy Quiel in Santa Barbara, I found my favorite art studio in nature, wherever I happened to be! My continued art education included workshops in Kauai and Greece with noted landscape painter Gregory Kondos.
My loose, landscape watercolors in nature became illustrations for a series of gift books published in 2002 with Helen Exley Giftbooks, a UK company. These small giftbooks have been translated into many languages and sold in countries worldwide.
Among local venues, my work has been shown in the yearly Ojai Art Detour, Bohemia Coffee House, The Oaks at Ojai, Ojai Coffee Roasters, Contempo Hair Salon and in group shows with Ventura Watercolorists. Thank you for coming by the OVA gallery in the arcade!
For gift books, poetry, and art please visit my website:
www.susanflorence.com
susan@susanflorence.com
805-216-3772
Instagram.com/florence.susan
