I feel you have to enter a landscape to paint it. As I start painting, I tell myself stories. Most of the time, there are people in my paintings. I give them names. Although they do not really exist, these people are very real to me.
My favorite subjects are fields. Painting them gives me a great sense of freedom. I have sometimes painted the same field over and over and yet every time it is different because it is painted at a different time of day or in a different season and the light is different each time.
I always start with a canvas primed with cadmium red. Besides providing me with a middle value, this under-painting gives my paintings a warm glow and I find it less intimidating than facing a white canvas. For me, painting is life and as natural as breathing. I will never stop painting."
Ms. Sakellarios is an internationally recognized and collected impressionist artist. She was awarded 'Founders Award - Best of Show' by the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society (NOAPS) Best of America Competition in 2005 and has been honored as one of only approximately 130 Signature Members in the United States of both the Oil Painters of America and NOAPS. She is the only Oil Painters of America signature member in the state of New Hampshire.
