Painter Heather Blanton has mastered the art of capturing the beauty of golf, skiing, surfing, and countless other sports.
Heather Blanton’s father had four daughters and an affinity for sports. When he wasn’t carting the bunch from one practice to the next, they were gathered around the television, watching sports as a family.
Just like that, movement became embedded in Blanton’s DNA. But it wasn’t until after she worked as a photographer for 20-plus years and needed a change that she picked up a brush and started painting runners, skiers, swimmers, and other athletes.
Blanton holds no MFA; instead, she’s meticulously self-taught and possesses a mind for both art and commerce. “I painted a few landscapes and did some collage stuff and some abstracts, but then I got this commission to paint cyclists,” she says. “I started studying and fell in love with the colors of the cyclists.” Blanton watched YouTube videos and movies that captured the heart of the sport, and before she knew it, she found herself enamored of the peloton.
Soon, this method would become essential to her artistic process. Step one: Choose a new movement style. Step two: Learn every single detail about that sport and how it’s played (and who plays it). Step three: Go into her studio in northeast Florida and paint in a flurry of inspiration.
“I do yoga and meditate first thing, and then I go in my garden. I'm a garden freak. I love flowers, and I have a little mini botanical garden where I work out all my problems and talk to my spirit guides,” she says. “So when I'm going into my studio, I'm ready. And if it's flowing, I'll stay there as long as possible.”
RELATED: Jenna Marsh Finds Comfort in Discomfort
Blanton is a self-proclaimed “workaholic,” (or perhaps art-aholic), but she says that she knew what was necessary to bring her artistic dreams to fruition. “My whole life, I've just known what I wanted and I knew how to get there: Log the time and practice,” she says. “Just like sports, you’ve got to do the training.
My whole life, I've just known what I wanted and I knew how to get there: Log the time and practice. Just like sports, you’ve got to do the training.
Her hard work has paid off. In 2019, the PGA Tour’s Florida-based Global Headquarters asked Blanton for pieces. “I stepped up that portfolio quite a bit,” she says, adding that golf is probably her second-largest seller these days, after skiing. She has also chronicled the diligent work of runners, tennis players, swimmers, and Formula 1 drivers over time.
RELATED: A Pro Athlete Turned Artist
Zoom in on Blanton’s work and you’ll see her attention to detail. Whether she’s painting a pack of runners or equestrians, each person has a personality. Her characters become animated with a swing of the arm or a knee bent in just the right way. Each micro-movement of her paintbrush creates characters that almost live, breathe, cross finish lines, leap mid-air, line up for a pass, row, or catch, and fall onto the field. Win, lose, feel overjoyed.
“I have to constantly be pushing my limits because there are so many people who come up behind you,” says Blanton. “I have to ask myself, ‘How can I separate myself from the pack?’”
Next, she says, she’s trying her hand at sculpture and painting on plexiglass.
“The real reason why I’ve stuck with [painting sports] for so long is the look on people's faces when they see the art and they connect with something that they're so passionately in love with. That is, health and sports,” she says.
Paintings: Heather Blanton