Why, yes! My art is in esteemed company. In the month of August, while my latest art exhibit is on display, the Michigan Shakespeare Festival is celebrating 25 years with performances of King Lear, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Cyrano de Bergerac at the Cherry Hill Village Theater. You have the rare opportunity to experience wonderful staging of one of the world's greatest playwrights and ponder over my stained glass inspired paintings at the same time! Special appreciation is

I am finally getting around to sharing some recent work with you! The oil painting at the right is one of my newest pieces. The painting shows a little angel statue, which stands as a monument in Bonaventure (meaning Good Fortune) Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Girl with the Upturned Shell was sculpted by John Walz. Pam DeCamp, a photographer, mentions a visit to this beautiful sculpture in a blogpost, "Clearly this person was loved by her family. The care in which the statue

Arts for the Spirit is a program of rotating art exhibitions that has been implemented in the Beaumont Hospitals in Southeast Michigan. Its goal is "to provide a restorative atmosphere that renews the human spirit..." I am pleased to have twenty-four of my paintings selected to participate in the Beaumont Arts for the Spirit exhibit from April 19 until July 12. This collection will be displayed at Beaumont hospitals in Grosse Pointe, Trenton and Dearborn. Spring is trying rea

As you are reading this, Fusion of Light & Color: A Stained Glass Inspiration is being dismantled and boxed up! It was displayed throughout the month of March at the Bennett Civic Center Library in Livonia. What a great experience this has been - so thankful to the Livonia Arts Commission for featuring my artwork! I have highlighted a couple of photos from the exhibit and the artist reception in this little slideshow. On a Personal Note... I can't help but share that a little

What is your preferred atmosphere to work in? I love being in and painting in my studio. It's not large or fancy, but I have everything I need in there. I flip on the lights and Pandora, pour myself a cup of tea, set up my paints and get busy. I especially enjoy it when the weather outside is extreme. By extreme I mean a wind storm, snowstorm or pouring rain. The quietness of the snow falling and piling up creating a white blanket. Or the rain bursting from the sky to pound n

Snow is piled up outside and the wind bites at our cheeks, but inside my studio I experience the best of two worlds. It's warm and cozy with unlimited hot chocolate - that alone is great on a snowy day. The second part of the equation is that my wonderful husband filled the bird feeder just outside my window and being able to watch them and listen to their chirping has been so much fun! A beautiful cardinal came three days in a row, but mostly I see chickadees, robins, wrens

You might recognize these walls if the Coffee Bean in Plymouth is one of your haunts. Today was the day I put up a collection of my paintings in the Cloud Room (so named for the clouds painted on the ceiling). Boy was it ever crowded! Stepping around customers, excusing myself to rearrange a title card, shuffling paintings from one spot to another to avoid tripping - that was our challenge today as my husband and I fastened nine of my oil paintings to a very bright wall. The

My Charleston adventure has begun! As planned, the Flex was stuffed to the hilt complete with carrier on top. I found a My First Art Fair Checklist online from another art blog (thank you Moshe Mikanovsky!), checked everything off, added a bunch of my own things and off we went! The driving went without a hitch and here we are with a couple of days to enjoy the Charleston area. There are wharfs, boats, pelicans, antebellum mansions - a ton of tours to take and places to eat.

JS Aitken blogs about preparing for first art festival - the Charleston-Mt. Pleasant Art Festival and posts her new oil painting "Jasmi

Susan Aitken is creating a series of stained glass style oil paintings with gargoyles. Read more about gargoyles and her new work!

Happy Friday everyone! I was out of town this past week, visiting parents in New Jersey, and was able to put the final touches on two 8x10's - Crimson Pop (see March 29th blog) and this one. It seems to jump off the screen, doesn't it? It is really bright! I'm sure it's the use of the contrasting colors that's creating that effect. I am titling this Tangerine Joy because it seems pretty orange to me and kind of happy also. It is part of the 8 x 10" series I'm painting for tho

Happy Spring! Now that it's official we need the weather to cooperate. Perhaps before Easter? At least do away with the patches of snow... At any rate, I thought we could celebrate with a new painting called Crimson Pop. It's another 8 x 10" oil painting, with the design wrapped around the edge. Enjoy! #SusanAitken #JSAitkenArt #JSAitkenArtblog #stainedglassoilpainting

It's always fun when something you have ordered arrives on your doorstep - isn't online ordering great? Well, yesterday's truck brought some frames - I thought it might be a good idea to offer a frame with my work, or at least to show what the painting looks like framed. So I ordered a few sizes. Understand that to frame or not to frame is personal choice if the canvases are painted on the sides, like mine are. The edges become an extension of the painting, and many collector

...Other paintings have more direct connections to my personal experiences and are more intentional. For example, Tranquil Garden is inspire

It's a rare person who doesn't love a beautiful flower - and they certainly abound in the wonderful world of nature. Very soon (March 20th, to be exact, if the calendar is to be trusted), we should start to see the beginnings of a fabulous season of bright greens, yellows, pinks, lavendars - a whole host of colors to remind us once again of the amazing cycle of life. A bit poetic, right? It is true, though, even if we don't articulate it; anyone who plods through a season of

Well, we can always hope that the March idiom "comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" stays true to form, since the lion part certainly materialized yesterday. Yikes! It snowed like crazy here in Canton! I know because I drove in the thick of it to attend the opening reception for the juried art exhibit called Persistence that I blogged about last week. The exhibit is hung in the artist's gallery at Madonna University in Livonia and will be up until March 27. It's a g

A touch of spring for those of us who have seen too much white, not enough sun, and just need a little green! Spring is officially only fourteen days away... hmm. I guess we will have to see if nature agrees with the calendar. Since this wintery weather seems fairly persistent at the moment (at least in Michigan!), I thought I'd post this oil painting Crimson Field (18x24") to brighten your day! To see more paintings like this check out the View Paintings page on the website!

Frogoyle: Escape from Washington Cathedral (18 x 24", oil on canvas) has just hopped off the easel. Fun for me was the frogoyle, inspired by a gargoyle who is normally firmly attached to the Washington Cathedral. Obviously, he is amazed to find himself in the U.S. Botanic Garden instead. Or in my own little pond - whichever! Reminiscent of the statue in Tranquil Garden, Frogoyle explores the idea of sculpture as just a part of a stained glass composition. Plans are already in

Happy first day of February! This is the newest painting from the JS Aitken studio, which is somewhat of an experiment. I wanted see how painting a small canvas would work out. This design is just 8 x10", the smallest so far. The painting extends around to the gallery wrapped edges, which are 1.5" deep. I wanted to do a few paintings for smaller spaces or for those who may like the style, but can't swing the larger pieces. What I need from you is a great title! I played aroun

So here I am, at the beginning! Not a bad place to be, really. In the spirit of introduction, I could label myself as wife, mother of four, retired secondary art teacher, illustrator and now full time painter. I could also say reader, friend and lover of all things chocolate. Some are more relevant labels, and there are more, but they all shift and overlap and it's the best we can do when we attempt to share about ourselves. The kids have flown the coop, two recently married,