When self taught Highland Park artist Paulette Krelman sits down at a canvass, she is not sure what will evolve from her brush but she is usually happy with what she creates.
A selection of Krelman's work — paintings of flowers in different colors and shapes — will be on display during February on the Art Wall of the Patty Turner Center where she will be the artist of the month.
"I like the look," Krelman said of her flower paintings. "They fit my sense of aesthetics. This is what I would put on my walls."
Though she said she has sold some paintings in her 12 years as a painter and hopes the Patty Turner Center exposure may help her move one or two more, Krelman said even the colors — a lot of yellow — are important to what she lives with daily.
"Blue would not fit in my environment," Krelman said. "It would not go with the furniture. I do try to force myself to use other colors."
Krelman, 69, said she spent most of her life in the import export business. Born in Brussels, she immigrated to the United States in 1978, settling in New Jersey to start an American branch of her father's company. She said the idea of painting popped into her head at age 10 but she did not start until 2004.
"I used to go to the galleries in New York," Krelman said. "I was at one in Soho and saw a painting. It was $18,000. I said no (to that) and said I'm going to paint. That's how it started."
Never taking a lesson, Krelman assembled the materials she needed and began to create. She said improvement comes from repetition as well as trial and error.
"I didn't do anything special to teach myself," Krelman said. "It's all about what happens between colors, movement and shapes. You get paint and a brush and start. I'll notice what happens when a brush stroke goes this way or that. Mostly I get better as I do more."
Imagination is Krelman's primary inspiration. She does not go to a garden and sketch flowers before putting images on a canvass. She said she just starts painting and eventually the images of flowers appear before her. There is self satisfaction.
"I like the aesthetics," Krelman said. "I like what happens when I set my eyes on them but there are no deep feelings."
After retiring in 2011, Krelman said she moved to Highland Park a year later. She chose the area because she has a son and grandchildren in Evanston.
Despite getting ready for her second show and considering displaying her paintings in a summer art show on the North Shore, Krelman said she is a painter, not an artist.
"I don't consider myself an artist," Krelman said. "An artist is someone who can actually paint a portrait. To put a person's face on a canvass without a distortion is very difficult. Not anyone can do it. It's something I cannot even aspire to."
A glimpse of Krelman's paintings on her Facebook page reveals one which has more than flowers. The top half is floral but the bottom part has a brown background with more than 25 yellow Jewish stars, Some have the words "Juif," "Jood" or "Jude" like the emblems the Nazis forced the Jews to wear during the Holocaust.
"My Jewish heritage is very much a part of my life," said Krelman, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. "My whole family was killed at Auschwitz or Treblinka. I had no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles."
The stars were painted first and then the flowers, according to Krelman.
"It's allegorical," Krelman said. "They represent rebirth into flowers, something good and beautiful."
Krelman may be adding some variety to her next show. She said she is currently working on painting animals.
"My son said why don't you paint animals?" Krelman said. "I'm painting a lion and a tiger. I like their faces. They're not finished yet."
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