AWC student starts budding painting career

Lia Littlewood didn't always want to be a painter, but she says an art class at Arizona Western College opened her eyes.

Now the young, local artist has more than 350 paintings under her belt and a budding career.

It started out with ceramics at Cibola High School, where Littlewood graduated in 2006.

"It morphed into painting all my ceramics. (My teacher) opened my mind to all that at first."

Then she took a drawing class and a painting class during the same semester at AWC with Professor Bill Blomquist.

"I freaked out in drawing, but painting was no problem," she said. "After (Blomquist) taught me about the color wheel, that really taught us to paint and mix."

Littlewood said that in the class, students were only allowed to bring paint in the three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. They had to mix those in order to get the colors they wanted.

Learning to use color has really impacted her style, she said. "I would like to say my style is colorful."

Along with a strong use of color, Littlewood said she likes to paint people "because you can 100 percent personalize it."

She said Blomquist also influenced her style when he saw one of her paintings of a two people. Where she had the couple fitting inside the canvas, Blomquist offered another idea.

"Blow it up, make it big," he said.

And now Littlewood said that's part of the way she paints.

One of her other favorite subjects is sunflowers, which she said can be a recurring theme.

In addition to painting, Littlewood is attending classes at AWC for nursing. But in her spare time, she commissions paintings for people and so far has painted more than 350 in just the past few years.

In addition to commissions, she sells her paintings and sometimes holds art shows at her family home in west Yuma.

She said she usually charges between $60 and $100 for a painting. "I try to keep it cheap so everyone can get in on it.

And with word of mouth and her Web sites, she doesn't have to advertise.

Littlewood said she recently took a break from painting after her mother passed away earlier this summer.

"That's a lot for me," she said.

But now, Littlewood is back in full swing. Her latest project: a painting of her mother.

It's still in the early stages, but Littlewood is painting her mother with angels on either side and a dress with peacock feathers flowing down - a nod to the peacocks at their family home, where Littlewood said her mother was when she passed away.

Details like that make each painting unique - and special to Littlewood.

"Basically, you can have anything in the world on this canvas," she said.