Diane Lewis lives in Eugene Oregon and is an owner
of Vistra Framing & Gallery. She took 15 years off
from working full time to pursue her art and take care of
her adult handicapped daughter. Currently she is back to
keeping regular hours at Vistra and works on her art as much as she can.
Throughout her life, Diane has always loved art and has
always thought of herself as an artist. As a child she
spent many hours drawing and painting. She started with
Disney characters, then using watercolors to painting
flowers. While in high school art classes, she found using
oil paint very fun and inspiring. Now, she uses oil,
pastels and acrylic as her favorite mediums. When she thinks
of a subject to paint she says, “It just seems natural to pick
one over the other for that piece, I cannot really say why. I
really enjoy using all 3 media, and find I continually learn
things about all of them”.
Diane is mostly self-taught. She has taken classes from
Tom Browning, Kevin MacPherson and Matt Smith. She
is inspired by John Carlson, John Singer Sargent, Richard
Schmid and David Laffel. Also, after spending 12 years
going out and painting in Plein Aire, it gave her a clear
understanding of the outdoors and how to paint light and
atmosphere.  living in Oregon and being around all the
rivers, gives her a lot of inspiration. She finds painting
water the most interesting, and is always drawn to that
type of scenery for inspiration. During Oregon’s rainy
seasons, she has had time to devote to still-life and animal paintings. In the last year,2020 she has been painting abstracts using cold wax and oils. Although it is a very different type of subject, she finds it nice to switch back and forth.
She is currently exhibiting in the Attic Gallery in Camas Washington, Earthworks Gallery in Yachats, Or. and Vistra Framing & Gallery, at 411 West 4th in Eugene, Oregon.