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Lois Donaghey is a contemporary oil painter and digital artist who lives and works in Santa Rosa, CA. Lois worked as a part-time artist until 2017, when she retired from her job as a school psychologist, and began painting full time. During her “life of art,” Lois has been active as an Artist-Member of Santa Rosa Art Guild, the Marin Society of Artists, Healdsburg Center for the Arts, and the San Francisco Women Artists’ Gallery. Lois is prolific painter/digital artist. She currently exhibits at Healdsburg Center for the Arts, at Corrick’sin Santa Rosa, and at the SFWA Gallery in San Francisco. She is also a Sonoma County Art Trails juried artist, and she has exhibited her work at the Santa Clara Triton Museum of Art (2021), the NUMU Museum of Art in Los Gatos (2020), The Falkirk Museum in San Rafael (2021), was accepted into the National Crocker-Kingsley Biennial Art Competition (2021), the DeYoung 2023 Triennial Competition (2023), and the National Crocker-Kingsley Biennial Art Competition (2025).
Published on April 1st, 2025. Artist responses collected in months previous.
Talk about some of the logistics of your art practice. What systems do you have in place to help streamline your workflows?
At the end of a day of painting I take a photo of my work in progress and drop that image into Procreate. I then use digital brushes and color to change my painting and tryout potential next steps in my painting process for this new piece of artwork. This process helps me sidestep paint messes on my canvas. This process also encourages me to drop expectations of what the painting will be like when it is complete. It makes me try to work toward making a good strong painting rather than make me determined to create only what I had initially intended.
What is some advice for someone who does not have any experience who would like to pursue a career like yours?
My advice to someone who has no experience as a professional artist is to study the professional contemporary artists that you admire. Follow them. Start entering local art competitions and juried exhibits. Create situations where you can meet other beginning artists. Find a group of like-minded early career artists and work with them, paint with them, sculpt with them, be with them, and learn from them. And know that artists love other artists. Ask us anything and we will share everything we know.
What was the lowest point in your art career and how did you overcome those adversities?
The lowest point in my art career was during the pandemic. Many artists thrived during these years of solitude and working alone. And, even tho I had always had my studio mostly isolated from other artists and did not enjoy the collegiality of interacting with studio mates, I reacted to the pandemic by further isolating myself. My creativity became paralyzed. I could not get motivated to make any artwork no matter hard I tried, or how much self-talk I engaged in. It was like my creativity had died. I grieved. That began to change as the pandemic changed and life on our Earth began inhaling again. When I did engage again, I was a different painter, making a completely different kind of artwork.
How did you come into the type of artwork you are doing now?
The artwork I am currently making grew out of the changes in me post-pandemic. My work became freer almost overnight once I started painting again. I laid down my paint brushes, picked up a large-size palette knife, and added new and more brilliant paint colors to my paint palette. I smiled more and found my paintings smiling with me. As I became happier and felt more fulfilled, my paintings started evolving into looser yet more organized creations. And, as I let go of my expectation to deliver a brilliant creation, my paintings became more experimental, more abstract, and more creative.
What was an epiphany in your art practice that took you to the next level?
This is a difficult question to answer. I don’t think there was any one epiphany, although there certainly were some circumstances that came together that assisted me along my art career pathway. For me it was letting go of my ego enough to allow myself to hire an art consultant, a person who works with struggling artists, providing them some guidance and answering the tough questions they have about how to attain their art career goals. If there was an epiphany in that, it is that hiring the expert is not going to help. What is going to help is being brave enough to let go of ego long enough to actually listen to them, then take the bull by the horns and implement the difficult steps to move oneself toward the career goal. In other words, to step out of one’s own way, roll up one’s sleeves, and do what is needed to get that golden ring!
Talk about some of the logistics of your art practice. What systems do you have in place to help streamline your workflows?
At the end of a day of painting I take a photo of my work in progress and drop that image into Procreate. I then use digital brushes and color to change my painting and tryout potential next steps in my painting process for this new piece of artwork. This process helps me sidestep paint messes on my canvas. This process also encourages me to drop expectations of what the painting will be like when it is complete. It makes me try to work toward making a good strong painting rather than make me determined to create only what I had initially intended.
What is some advice for someone who does not have any experience who would like to pursue a career like yours?
My advice to someone who has no experience as a professional artist is to study the professional contemporary artists that you admire. Follow them. Start entering local art competitions and juried exhibits. Create situations where you can meet other beginning artists. Find a group of like-minded early career artists and work with them, paint with them, sculpt with them, be with them, and learn from them. And know that artists love other artists. Ask us anything and we will share everything we know.
What was the lowest point in your art career and how did you overcome those adversities?
The lowest point in my art career was during the pandemic. Many artists thrived during these years of solitude and working alone. And, even tho I had always had my studio mostly isolated from other artists and did not enjoy the collegiality of interacting with studio mates, I reacted to the pandemic by further isolating myself. My creativity became paralyzed. I could not get motivated to make any artwork no matter hard I tried, or how much self-talk I engaged in. It was like my creativity had died. I grieved. That began to change as the pandemic changed and life on our Earth began inhaling again. When I did engage again, I was a different painter, making a completely different kind of artwork.
How did you come into the type of artwork you are doing now?
The artwork I am currently making grew out of the changes in me post-pandemic. My work became freer almost overnight once I started painting again. I laid down my paint brushes, picked up a large-size palette knife, and added new and more brilliant paint colors to my paint palette. I smiled more and found my paintings smiling with me. As I became happier and felt more fulfilled, my paintings started evolving into looser yet more organized creations. And, as I let go of my expectation to deliver a brilliant creation, my paintings became more experimental, more abstract, and more creative.
What was an epiphany in your art practice that took you to the next level?
This is a difficult question to answer. I don’t think there was any one epiphany, although there certainly were some circumstances that came together that assisted me along my art career pathway. For me it was letting go of my ego enough to allow myself to hire an art consultant, a person who works with struggling artists, providing them some guidance and answering the tough questions they have about how to attain their art career goals. If there was an epiphany in that, it is that hiring the expert is not going to help. What is going to help is being brave enough to let go of ego long enough to actually listen to them, then take the bull by the horns and implement the difficult steps to move oneself toward the career goal. In other words, to step out of one’s own way, roll up one’s sleeves, and do what is needed to get that golden ring!
Find Lois Donaghey on Instagram
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