Listen to this post spoken by Annie Salness: 

Painter Annie Salness is bringing together two worlds in the way she paints. Two years ago, she had a stroke and lost the use of her dominant right hand. Calling on her experience coaching sports, she now gives herself daily drawing drills and exercises to gain more control over her left hand. I got to see some of her paintings in her studio recently. I was really lucky to get a peek at a sheet where she does her drawing drills and then see how she moves from the drills into capturing forms and shapes she sees around her.

Visit Annie’s blog at www.anniesalness.blogspot.com to see even more beautiful work. Pick up a few paintings, commission something new, enjoy.

Below is a part of a great conversation we had. Click the Soundcloud icon above to listen to Annie herself share these thoughts below about art.

“I studied illustration in college, and I thought I would be a freelance illustrator.  And I got a biomedical illustration certificate. I really loved it because you got to have anatomy and stuff, but then you also learned art.

I know I had a stroke, but I’m like, “Oh yeah? You mean me? I had a stroke?” I just kinda go well, it’s like an injury. I have to recover from an injury. And now I draw left-handed and paint. I am still shaky. So that would be the difference. But as far as what I’m thinking about or something, it’s all the same. It has to find a new way out. My left hand is the new way, and I have to train it. It’s all up here, but it just needs to find a new way out using my left hand.

Sometimes, I get it, and I think, “Oh yeah! That’s it!” But usually it’s kind of a struggle, but I know it’s getting better. But the hardest part is cleaning out the brushes: Ahh! It’s so bad.

For me, I feel like I’m on a journey to get better. It was before the stroke and now afterwards. I think I am always on a big journey to get better.” — Annie Salness