For as long as Nelson artist Jaymie Johnson can remember, she wanted to be an artist.
“When I was little I wanted to go to Emily Carr [School of Art] but then I just stopped thinking that because I didn’t have the money,” she said.
Johnson — whose collection of paintings is currently on display at Dominion Cafe on Baker Street — has always focused her art on painting and drawing.
“This is my first time doing acrylic and ink on wood, and it’s my new favourite thing,” she said.
The inspiration for the series on display at Dominion came while Johnson was working on another collection she was doing a lot of research for but found she wasn’t enjoying.
“I didn’t want to go into my studio and work on it. I decided to do something different and experiment and play around,” she said.
After a while Johnson said the series consumed a lot of her time and she was enjoying spending hours working on her paintings.
The faces in her paintings may look familiar to people in the community because Johnson used the faces of her friends as inspiration.
“I asked my friends to send pictures they felt comfortable with me using,” she said. “I was getting sick of using my own face with my Macbook webcam trying out different portraits.”
Johnson’s dream of going to Emily Carr will become a reality this fall as she starts second year at the Vancouver art school.