Susie McColgan has been creating paintings since kindergarten and has been pursuing her passion since then. Susie started out working with the agencies while doing some commission work but her love for paintings etched her until she decided to take the leap of faith and work full-time as an Artist. Susie’s specialty and expertise is the Art of Healing, by implementing the scientific and emotional healing principles, her paintings create a healing energy through strategic color and lighting relationships and design, bringing feelings of comfort, warmth, hope, and peaceful harmony.

In conversation with the artist Susie McColgan, who creates ‘Healing Art‘ through strategic color and lighting which brings feelings of comfort and warmth. In this interview, Susie shares how she first started to create Art, her life events influencing her work, how she uses Art of Healing in her paintings, and more.

1. Susie, when did you first start creating art?

I first started creating art when I was in kindergarten, I remember how much I loved drawing these running horses on my abstract tissue collage artwork. I was always drawing at recess, I loved drawing something and could take it home with me (!) like the trees in the playground. I did get in trouble in middle school when I sold my Betty & Veronica cartoons to the other kids for a quarter. My mom was not too happy when they called her in, however, she must have been proud of my early business sense back then! I began creating more seriously in middle school, taking summer classes at the local college, and being in art fairs selling my art and drawing people’s portraits sitting live for me. In high school, I took art class twice a day sacrificing a typing class (that is why I am still a terrible typist to this day lol). But I benefitted so much from learning twice as much. After graduating high school and University of Michigan Art School (BFA) I continued to create, do commissions, and work full-time for agencies in Michigan for about 10 years…until the call to paint full-time ached so bad in my heart that I decided to take a leap of faith and make painting and portrait work my career. And then the REAL challenges began! And the fun!

Like a bath of gentle happiness. A hug of comforting love.

That is what I want to give with my paintings.

2. Have any major life events have influenced your work?

My grandmother giving me her oil paints and brushes when I was nine years old was one of the biggest moments in my beginning artwork. She was an amazing fauvism artist with courageous use of color and brushwork, and she was my greatest inspiration. I hear her voice sometimes in my head when I’m painting, trying to figure things out and make decisions. While at the university they opened my eyes to the whole graphic, contemporary design world, while also studying other great artists. The day I saw my first Sargeant portrait, I had a spiritual experience. His mastery of portraiture inspires me every day. But by far the biggest life event that influenced my work was the near-death accident I was in in 2019. When you have almost everything taken away from you, it smacks you in the face and says, “Hey dummy, paint like there’s no tomorrow and paint what you’ve been holding in your heart…NOW. It’s been a long 4 years of recovery with multiple surgeries to rebuild my painting hand and arm (it was shattered in the accident), but I am now able to walk…and paint again. You see, life is very full, and as women we are caregivers. We have our great loves in our life which I put first and always will but for the first time (due to the accident) I made the decision to dedicate my energies and focus to PAINT what is in my head, purely and allowing all the “me” to come out, putting fears aside, putting any internal negative chatter aside to nurture it and share it with the world. To Be Courageous.

3. What excites you the most about creating your work?

What excites me the most about creating my work is the “first” and “finished” dynamic in my process. First, is my seeing the finished painting in my mind: all the powerful, dramatic emotional light, the juxtaposed colors, the creative composition, etc., and then as I’m painting it, it emerges from within. I can be in such an intense “zone” of creation it’s not until I take a break and walk away from the canvas, “rinse my eyes” as I like to call it, and reopen my eyes to look at the painting that it can, well…it can sometimes take my breath away, in amazement almost like a surprise of it before me. It will never cease to amaze me…the power of the myriad of deep instinctual decisions, combined with spontaneous purposeful sometimes magical brushstrokes and creative paint nuances…that makes this all truly exciting. Equally exciting is when someone loves and feels a powerful, moving feeling or connection about one of my works, and if it can help them emotionally in any way. Means so much to me.

My paintings create a healing energy through strategic color and lighting relationships and design, bringing feelings of comfort, warmth, hope and peaceful harmony.

4. How would you describe your work in three emotions?

Uplifting, Loving, Comforting

5. Susie, your artwork “Love Conquers All” is my favorite. Could you elaborate more on it?

It was a 20-degree-below-zero day in northern Michigan at our family’s cabin when I was looking out over the frozen lake (where normally on hot summer days we would be swimming) but that day was so cold it seemed like nothing living was outside. As I watched the glorious sunset on the horizon I was taken aback at how the power of the sun’s rays penetrated through the tree trunks as if they were on fire with heat, like making them disappear visually in that instance. It reminded me of the power of love. How it can burn bright through anything, How it can lift the lowest soul, heal a wounded heart, and live beyond earthly limitations. So when I was commissioned to do a series (6) of Healing & Spiritual Paintings for a hospital this became one of my “Colors of Faith Collection” a permanent display to help patients, staff, and members of the community. One of my specialties and expertise is the Art of Healing; implementing the scientific and emotional healing principles and research into my artwork which is best represented in my painting “Love Conquers All”

6. Susie, you are a multi-disciplinary artist. Any advice you would give to the artists starting out?

If you are just starting, play and experiment with all the different mediums. Listen to your heart, which one excites you the most? Which one does your mind flood with ideas with? Next would be to start keeping sketchbooks to jot down all your ideas, compositions, value studies, etc, and then try to organize them in folders of common themes. Try to notice what are you more than others developing more ideas about. Develop them further. This is important: Try to develop an INTENTION, or a PURPOSE, a FEELING to cause a result or reaction. At the same time learn as much as you can about color harmony and theories…it will be the roots and foundation of everything you create. A painting is only as effective as your intentions are clear. And then…paint with your heart! It would be good to learn and understand how to run a business and develop good customer service practices. My best advice would be…Never Give Up. Fix it if you don’t like it. Stay true to You.

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