Ambassador of the Week: Lana Cease

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Meet Lana Cease, this week’s top American Watercolor Weekly Ambassador!

“Confectionery” (watercolor, 30 x 20 in.): Painted from a photo from our vacation to Catalina Island a few years ago, you can make out the palm trees in the reflection. I passed by this window many times taking it over and over again, but I got it on the first try.

Born and raised in Iowa, Cease was taught to paint in oils at a young age by her mother and later took many art courses throughout high school but experienced very little watercolor. She let her painting mainly go to the wayside until 2012 when her husband, Gene, bought her a watercolor class through AKMA as a Christmas gift.

“I’d always loved the look of watercolor but really didn’t know the proper techniques. Having learned the basics of oil painting, it was difficult to make the jump as the approach to watercolor is the exact opposite of oil,” says Cease. Cease took to it quickly and from there it unfolded extensively.

“3 Car Pile up” (watercolor, 30 x 20 in.): When I imagined this painting, I thought about how little kids play – boys in particular. Takes me back to my childhood and my brother’s outdoor toybox full of Tonka trucks.

“My art helps transport me back to my youth in rural Iowa in the 1970’s,” she says. “I was then, and still am, intrigued by small, quirky details both in everyday objects and human beings alike. I believe that you can find beauty in almost any object or person when looked at in the proper perspective and in a new light. I want to show the viewer how to observe something they see every single day in a unique and unexpected way.

“Painting in a realistic realm I find to be meditative and soothing work. To me, realism is much like math, in that both brings me a calm knowing that there’s only one true answer of what the outcome should look like.

“The Hoard” (watercolor, 40 x 30 in.): By far my largest painting yet. This oversized image of marbles around a ball jar harkens back to being a kid, hoarding all your marbles in a jar under your bed.

“I am drawn towards the brightness of light but also the shadows that it casts, as I find both are required to create a balance in a piece of art. I find myself occasionally leaning towards darker art, which I feel balances my view of the world as a reminder that not everything is perfect.”

Become an American Watercolor Ambassador for a chance to be featured in an upcoming issue!


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Kelly Kane
PleinAir Magazine and American Watercolor Weekly Editor-in-Chief With more than 20 years experience in art publishing, Kelly Kane has served previously as Editor-in-Chief of Watercolor Artist magazine and Content Director for The Artist’s Magazine, Drawing, Acrylic Artist, and Pastel Journal. She has interviewed many of the preeminent artists of our time and written numerous articles about painting, drawing, art education and art history. She is now the Editor-in-Chief of PleinAir Magazine and the American Watercolor Weekly newsletter. Click here to send her an email.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Lana is definitely gifted with incredible visualization, imagination and realism with such beauty added to make it an absolutely awesome painting.

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