Words Jo Barnes
Photo Tanya Murchie
She paints about water, with water and regularly … right on the water! Based out of North Saanich, Sheena Lott is a multi-talented artist whose latest works feature Sidney’s waterfront, but it is the location of her art classes that is most unusual: on board cruise ships on the high seas.
“I teach watercolour painting classes on board Cunard, Celebrity and other premium cruise lines all over the world,” she shares. “I have been doing this for 30 years. It keeps up my skills in art, I meet people from all over the world, and I love the excitement of it all.”
The teaching opportunity was one that took some time to be realized. Sheena had been painting for a few years when an artist friend recommended her to an agent who represented a number of cruise lines.
“After submitting my resume and artwork samples, I was offered different trips,” she says. “However, in the beginning I was not able to do this as I was raising children at that point and also had work commitments. Now I do two trips each year.”
While Sheena has enjoyed painting in a variety of mediums such as acrylic, oil and watercolour, the chance to instruct and inspire others to do watercolour painting has brought much reward. “I feel privileged to do this,” she comments. “Passengers keep in touch and sometimes say ‘I am going to take up watercolour painting when I get home!'”
Leading a painting class while aboard a ship is not always easy, but Sheena takes the various onboard challenges in stride. “It is a challenge to help people in the class produce a painting in only two hours. They all have different abilities. I presume it’s everyone’s first time, and I break it down into steps,” she notes, adding with a smile: “I also get seasick, but fortunately have found ways to deal with that.”
Unlike the stable conditions of her home art studio, a ship at sea is always on the move, sometimes unexpectedly. “We were crossing the Atlantic and it was super rough. There was a lurch at one point and one lady’s chair slid across the floor. It is hard to put paint on paper when you feel like you are on an elevator!” she shares. “I had to shut down the class.”
Sheena’s maritime teaching is one among many interests she holds. A trained occupational and physiotherapist, wife and mother, Sheena has had to work out the balance of pursuing her art while attending to other life demands. While she knew from a very young age that she had a passion and innate ability to draw and paint, she wanted to pursue a type of work that would be financially viable. “I first realized in Grade Three that I had the ability to draw. My Grade Five teacher bought one of my paintings,” she relates. “I eventually went to UBC with the idea of going into architecture. I didn’t want to be a starving artist. I ended up going into occupational and physiotherapy and completed my degree in Rehabilitation Medicine.”
Sheena focused on the demands of physiotherapy work and raising a family, but the inner artistic voice kept calling. “At age 30, I said to myself ‘If I don’t get back to doing art, I might not do it at all,'” she relates.
Sheena took up the brush again and delved back into the world of art. She is primarily self-taught, honing her skills through practice and workshops. “I took a course with artist David White, which got me interested in watercolour. He spurred me on and said I had natural ability. I also took workshops on Salt Spring Island with top instructors through the Federation of Canadian Artists.”
It wasn’t too long before Sheena’s creative work garnered attention. “I entered the Saanich Fair and won top prize in watercolour for my landscape painting,” she says. “I took this as an omen.”
Since then, Sheena’s work has been exhibited in numerous private and corporate collections and prestigious galleries, and the list of awards has lengthened including a Grand Prix silver medal, the Federation of Canadian Artists Associate Award and the Myfanwy Spencer Pavelic Award and book illustration honours with the Federal Science in Society and The Canadian Children’s Book Centre.
For Sheena, who is now a grandmother and sharing her art with the next generation, painting has and continues to be at her core. “I paint, teach art, and illustrate books,” she comments. “All of it keeps me going through all stages of life.”
Art has enabled Sheena to travel not only in her imagination, but also to cruise the seas and share her joy of painting with others.
