Sylvan Gallery Artist: Stephen Lyons

Stephen Lyons was born in 1960, the eighth of eleven children. Inspired by his mother's artwork, he began drawing and painting at an early age. "My first real success was when Sister Columba did not make me erase a drawing I did on my school desk." Stephen attended the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Old Lyme Connecticut, studying figure drawing and anatomy with Deane G. Keller, Portraiture With Dan Gheno, and sculpture with Elizabeth Gordon Chandler. He also studied painting and printmaking at the Art Students League in New York City. Stephen moved to Connecticut to study the figure, but was drawn to landscape painting after seeing works by the early New England impressionists - Ryder, Irvine, Talcott, Lathrop, Mulhaupt, etc. He was also strongly influenced by the early California impressionists - Payne, Braun, Puthuff, Wendt, etc.

"When painting on location, it's easy to get confused by the infinite variation of color and value found in nature - but there is safety in numbers! I try to reduce everything to fives: five degrees each of value, color saturation, focus, etc.. I don't use black or earth colors, but instead mix my darks and neutrals from a limited palette of five or six pure pigments, focusing more on value and temperature relationships than on particulars of color. Most of my painting is done outdoors, with minimal studio retouching.”

Stephen's paintings are in collections throughout the United States and Canada. He currently lives in Mobile, Alabama.

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