Carol grew up in Minnesota, where as a child, she fell in love with the beauty of flowers, the landscape, and the four seasons. Her creative mother loved art, music and flowers which she grew in a large fenced in flower garden, safe from rabbits but not Minnesota gophers. Carol’s first paintings were “paint by number” which quite amazingly taught her to understand how to render lights and shadows to create dimension. As a very young child she was intrigued by the art on Currier and Ives Christmas cards and illustrations in children’s books. Unfortunately Carol’s mother died just as Carol turned 10 and she lost her inspiration and mentor. School became a place of joy and lucky for her, Carol’s home economics teacher taught her Interior Design. Carol still remembers her design board as it was truly a success, an A+. As in art, interior design requires knowledge of composition, color, balance, value and accents.
Carol has undergraduate and graduate studies in teaching, interior decoration and design and fine art. To make a living in the sixties, about the only careers open to women were teaching, nursing, and being a secretary. Carol chose teaching though she tinkered with oil painting as early as 1968. But being both a teacher and a young mother, painting had to wait until 1998 when Carol was able to pursue her art career full-time. Most of her art instructors have been painters of Impressionism including Lois Griffel at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts as well as James Richards, James Kroner, Ned Mueller, Eric Michaels, Ken Auster, Carolyn Anderson and others. Carol has spent years studying and understanding the art of painting and its many elements, believing in continual study through classes, workshops (both plein air and studio), museums, travel and art books. Many aspects of her art studies have been uplifting, enlightening and even comical at times.
Carol has shown nationally and internationally. Her work can be found in private collections in the United States, Norway and Iceland. Carol has shown her art in galleries, group exhibitions, competitions and juried shows where she has won awards and honors.
Artist Statement
Carol Hopper is a studio and plein air painter. Her style is impressionistic which requires knowledge of balance between light and form, color and value, and perspective. She uses both a palette knife and a brush to get textural interest and strong paint quality. Carol paints mostly landscapes and flowers through she has few borders to what she chooses to paint. She captures anything in nature: flowers, trees, the forest floor, mushrooms, weeds, lakes, rivers and waterfalls. Buildings living in and with nature are a favorite subject as well.
Her goal is to create beauty, art that uplifts and provides peace in an often chaotic world. She paints what she loves and feels deeply with the intention of conveying those emotions and story to the viewer.
