About

Hello, my name is Joyce Runyan, and I sign my paintings JRunyan.

I want my work to excite and delight with form, shape, line, color, and texture.  I want to create a "visual experience" to look with the painting to see something new and different, and to evoke feelings along the compendium of emotions from contemplation, mystery, soulfulness, happiness, energy, and excitement..

I usually start with texture or color and work intuitively from there.  I love to see the color and texture create its own energy and direction.  Texture adds another dimension and interest in pattern and design.  For me Creating abstract and non-objective art is an exciting process, and I never know exactly how it going to turn out until it is finished.

I remember always being an artist.  I would sit at my Grandmother's know and draw her portrait.  Then at the age of 5, after seeing the rehearsal for the elementary school program, I drew and colored the two main characters.  The school used it for advertising of the play.  In the 5th and 6th grades, I painted in pastel, and 2 of my pastels hung in the school auditorium until the school was set to be demolished some 30-40 years later.  While obtaining my degree in art from Methodist College, Fayetteville, N.C., I painted in oil, charcoal, and tempera, and my paintings ranged from realistic to abstract.  I knew I'd found my true inspiration when I first saw the brilliant colors and designs in paintings of Val Gogh, Matisse, and Picasso.  After retiring from a career working for the Navy, I started working in watercolor painting still lifes, horses, and portraits.  Then I started experimenting in pouring watercolor inks and working with acrylics.  With acrylic, I can have the best of all worlds in painting from fluidity of watercolor to texture even beyond what you can get with oils.  I've been painting in acrylics now for about 10 years although I still do small pastels, occasionally.  

Joyce's painting "Spirit of the White Horse" is in the magazine Southwest Art, April 2017, in article "Acrylic Works" which congratulates the winners of North Light Books' Fourth Annual Best of Acrylic Art Competition and presents a sampling of the winning artists. The artists were selected from more than 1,000 entries from all over the globe.

Joyce's painting "Fall into Winter" is in the book Acrylic Works 4: Captivating Color , published May 2017.  It is one of the winners of North Light Books' Fourth Annual Best of Acrylic Art Competition.  The artists were selected from more than 1,000 entries from all over the globe.

Joyce's painting "Connections" is in the magazine Southwest Art, October 2017, in article "Ones to Collect."

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