Shirley L  Church

Shirley L Church



About The Artist


I have been oil painting since I was about 8 years old, when I left paint by number to paint a copy of my piano teacher's house across the street. I studied oil painting as a freshman at Chadron State Teachers College in Chadron, Nebraska. Subsequently I worked at painting periodically, as a hobby. I sold my first paintings in Laguna Beach from a gallery in about 1972. After that, I was so busy learning and practicing chemical engineering,and then learning law and being a practicing patent attorney that I did not have much time to paint. I started painting seriously in about 2010. I am a member of the La Jolla Art Association, located in La Jolla Shores, where my paintings are often displayed. I plan to spend an ever increasing amount of time painting in the next few years. I call my style abstract realism. Often people think my paintings are a photograph from a distance. However, upon looking more closely the abstractions become more evident. I use bright colors, and mainly paint street scenes; however, I am adding more and more people to the street scenes as time progresses.