Like almost everyone else, Jill Pearson found herself bored of staring at a screen all the time during the pandemic. A professional illustrator with a degree in Fine Art from the University of the Arts, she created freelance work using Photoshop from her home in Downingtown, but she wanted more.
Life as a freelance Photoshop illustrator wasn’t the glamorous one Pearson had dreamed of, but it paid her bills until her children came along. In 2021, she began painting again, as she had in her youth. She had no plans to win awards or sell the great American masterpiece, but in 2024 she took first place in the mixed media category at the Lititz Outdoor Fine Art Show near Lancaster.
Pearson’s Photoshop background gives her a unique vision of the modern art landscape. Although media and technology literacy is higher today than ever before, most classically trained artists do not have as deep a knowledge of digital art as Pearson.
Her process for creating mixed media art includes acrylic paint, drawing mediums, and collages made from found paper, books, palette paper, and more. It’s a style that’s almost entirely Pearson’s own, somewhere between abstract and landscape, tugging on a certain chord in the viewer’s brain and conveying a sense of familiarity with the unknown.
“I start completely intuitively and build up layers and remove layers,” explains Pearson. “I use an orbital sander and sand through the material to create texture. It really goes back and forth and back and forth and I work out the composition on the canvas rather than starting with the sketch.”
There’s an old saying that says there are two kinds of creatives: architects and gardeners. Architects plan everything in advance, like blueprints for a house. Gardeners, on the other hand, let their work grow organically, like they’re caring for a plant. A gardener might know he’s planted a petunia, but he doesn’t know how tall it will grow or how many seeds it will sprout. No artist fits neatly into one category, but if one had to define Pearson, she would far better end up as a gardener.
“I find abstract art more challenging because you’re not starting with an idea and you’re not following a sketch,” she continues. “I would say that as I get closer to the end of the painting, I’m sort of editing the piece. I’m using my design skills to edit the composition and show what I want to show. It’s a kind of journey… the whole process of creating the painting. I want the whole story of the painting to be seen on the canvas.”
Using this technique, Pearson has sold her art at venues such as the Wayne Art Center, Historic Yellow Springs, the Malvern Retreat House Art Show, and most recently, the fairly competitive Lititz Fine Arts Show. She had already started planning for Lititz in the winter of 2023, when she submitted a booth photo to the fair’s organizers, but it took until May for them to confirm her place in the competition.
So on July 27, Pearson found herself under her white tent in Lititz Spring Park, surrounded by her latest works on display. When the person across from her received his award for the drawing discipline, Pearson wrote himself off as the organizers left their booth and the fair slowly died down.
So when someone approached her booth wearing a blue bow, it was a complete surprise. Pearson was overjoyed.
Winning an award as an artist is not only a source of pride, but also a sign of legitimacy. It means that others have recognized the artist’s value and makes it easier for her to exhibit and sell her own art and participate in more significant exhibitions.
“I’m hoping that this will allow me to expand into better galleries in the area. It’s only been three years since I started painting again, so I think I have a lot more up my sleeve in terms of what I want to achieve,” says Pearson. “I’d also like to apply to some better art fairs. One of them that I’m likely to apply to next year is the Long’s Park Art Festival in Lancaster, which is an absolutely top-notch art fair. I’m hoping that winning this award will help me do that.”
Winning this award in Lititz was a crowning moment for Pearson, but she does not plan for it to be The the crowning moment of her artistic career. Suddenly doors that were once closed are open to her. With a new source of recognition, Pearson is ready to take the region by storm and become the artist she always wanted to be.
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