One Stroke at a Time: Jerrine Querin

Stages Magazine
March/April 2010

It’s ten o’clock at night and while most people are thinking about heading to bed, artist Jerrine Querin is heading into the studio at her Belhaven home.  The Jackson native has been known to paint into the wee hours of the morning, often completing the last brush stroke at five a.m.

“That is my time,” she reveals.  “I get going and really get involved in a painting and I lose track of the rest of the world.”

Querin has been painting for 15 years.  Getting her start in watercolors, the self-taught artist began painting in oils eight years ago.  “I love the way oil paintings add warmth to a wall,” she says.  “I like the look of a brush stroke on a painting.”  When asked where she draws her inspiration, Querin replies, “When you paint, you look at the world differently.  I might be driving down the road and suddenly notice the clouds or the shape of a tree.  Before I began painting I never took the time to notice the clouds.”  Querin considers herself to be a colorist when it comes to her work.  Colorist artists produce vibrant, richly-hued paintings that impart the perception that the world is a richer, more beautiful place than we can see in our day-to-day lives.  Adds Querin, “I love colorful landscapes.  In my paintings, you will never see just a tree with green leaves and a brown trunk.”

Querin utilizes the Alla Prima style of painting.  This technique requires that a canvas be completed while the paint is still wet, rather than building colors on a canvas by adding layers of paint or by glazing over an underpainting.  In other words, an Alla Prima painting is started and completed in one session.  Each brush stroke is final with no retouching afterwards.   The result is a work of art with a spontaneous feeling that is completed during the artist’s inspiration.

“Many people assume that painting is a great way to relax, but it’s actually more about solving problems,” Querin says.  “Setting up your composition is the hardest part because if you don’t like the composition you aren’t going to be happy with your painting.  You have decide what your focal point is going to be how the light is going to hit your composition.  However, getting lost in the process of creating a painting is a wonderful experience.”

Jerrine has studied in workshops from nationally and internationally reknowned artists such as Gregg Kreutz, Joe Anna Arnett, Brad Lorbach, Lucy Mazzaferro, Bill Wilson and Bob Tompkins.  She has contributed her work to various silent and live auctions for charities.  Querin paints weekly at the Bob Tompkins Group Gallery.  She presently shows at the Jackson Street Gallery in Ridgeland, Mississippi.