"First of Spring", 16 x20 matted & framed watercolor $395.

Sunshine Taylor started painting in 1981, while living in northern Vermont. "Vermont was so beautiful that I was inspired to try to capture it's beauty. After some experimentation, I turned to watercolors, and I fell in love with them. I knew I'd found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life!"

A native Californian, Sunshine returned to her homestate in 1989. She found the transition from painting snowy Vermont landscapes to brilliant California gardenscapes and flowers an easy one. The gardens and landscapes of Mendocino provide the prefect match for her love of color and flowers. From the beginning, Sunshine's paintings expressed her love of color and nature. Although her paintings have matured over the years, they still retain her fresh and joyful vision. Mendocino art critic Louis Martin put it well: "Sunshine's paintings work on you--after a few minutes of viewing, the warmth penetrates, defying the worst mood to do anything other than move over for happiness."

For Sunshine, the gift of painting came naturally. Although she studied with a number of noted artists, including Lawrence Goldsmith, Judy Betts, and Robert Wade, she is primarily self-taught. Sunshine's paintings have been widely collected on the East and West Coast and in Canada. A major collection of her work is owned by one of Canada's largest corporations. She created the 1998 poster for "Art in the Gardens" the premier annual summer arts festival of the Mendocino Coast. Licensed reproductions of her paintings are marketed nationally in the form of computer screen savers and mouse pads. She illustrated "A Mayflower Springs," a book of poems and short stories by Lucille Hubbard. Sunshine now makes her home in Caspar, California, with her daughter, Lilli.