Anne Stine is a fine artist and a highly successful businesswoman.  Working from her home art studio in Purcellville, she keeps very busy most days with her encaustic painting while devoting one day a week to the marketing and promotion of her art via social media, newsletters, and direct contacts with her extensive and growing clientele. In many ways, she is a model for those who are aiming to build a successful career in the art world.   

Anne is a “local girl.”  She was born in Fairfax, Virginia, in the same farmhouse where her father was raised during the Great Depression. She grew up in a farm-like setting of limited means and developed a love of nature and the outdoors that inspire her artwork today.  As a young girl she spent many hours outdoors playing and drawing.  She attended Virginia Tech where she studied communications and art. After graduation, she worked as a Public Information Officer for Fairfax County, then as a marketing manager at EDS where she gained knowledge and experience in marketing communications and special events.  Several years later, she landed a job with a Los Angeles direct marketing firm, helping art organizations with their membership campaigns and fund raising.  She later opened the firm’s east coast office in Herdon.

 Anne considers herself a self-taught artist, although she did take art classes for several years at the Corcoran.  Her studies, which included mural painting and trompe l’oeil under the renown Patrick Kerwin, led her to launch a successful business of commercial and residential mural painting over the next 10 years.  During this period, she also became acquainted with encaustic art which is her current passion and business. Since she could not find encaustic instructors locally, Anne learned this unique medium on her own from books and videos.  And today, she teaches encaustic and cold wax painting from her studio.

Anne feels that the encaustic medium enables her to capture the intensity, fluidity, and diverse textures present in natural settings more effectively than any other medium.   Texture plays a big role in encaustic painting.  Anne uses the medium to mimic textures in nature in her more representational painting.   In her abstract paintings, she uses texture as a visual form juxtaposing smooth and rough textures next to each other.   She also aims to depict in her landscape art, vivid colors, dramatic texture, and luminosity. 

Anne has a strong bond with nature.  She says “My artwork crafted with beeswax paint and mixed media, delves into the essential, powerful need-mental, spiritual and physical-that humans have for the natural world.”   While Anne mainly paints in her studio, she gets inspiration from the outdoors, sketching with the Loudoun Sketch Club which she joined some five years ago, and from the beaches, bays, and marshes of North Carolina where her family vacations

Anne has had considerable success in displaying her art.  She has been featured at galleries in Middleburg, Washington, DC, New York and elsewhere.  Last October, she released a collection of her paintings, “Call for Sweet Water,”  at the Touchstone Gallery in Washington D.C.   This year, from April 2-27, she will have a new solo show of paintings called “River’s Journey,”  at the Byrne Gallery in Middleburg.

Looking to the future, Anne wants to learn more about encaustic and cold wax painting and push her work into abstraction. She is attracted to the paintings of several abstract painters;  she especially likes the lines of Richard Diebenkorn, the use of shapes by Nicolas de Steal, the gentle palate of Roger Muhl, and the simplified forms of Bato Dugarzhapov. Knowing Anne, there is little doubt she will find other artists that inspire her, and she will produce more exciting encaustic paintings in the coming years. Keep an eye out for her!!

What is the process of encaustic painting?  Here is how Anne explains it:

“I begin by creating an underpainting on a wood panel using such materials as chalk paint, alcohol ink, pan pastels, and wax pencil to establish my composition. Then I begin adding layers of encaustic paint (a combination of molten beeswax, natural resin called “damar”, and pigment) to add depth and accentuate color and shape. Each layer of wax is then fused with a blowtorch to the panel to make the wax adhere to the surface and allow it to flow and drip. Finally, I use mixed media such as oil stick and cold wax mixed with oils to add details. It’s the unpredictable qualities of the encaustic process that really inspire me to push the limits of my medium and imagination.”

Anne has a website  www.annestine.com, a blog www.annestine.com/blog/  and a newsletter.  She can also be found on Facebook,  YouTube, and Instagram, where she has over 11,000 followers.