I love the challenge of trying to capture the movement of the water in my paintings as well as capturing the light.

Jumbo Rocks campground at Joshua Tree National Park in California. An inspiring place. It made me want to paint again and I didn't even have to leave the campsite.     Some of my Paintings   Life on the Edge, 9 x 12 plein air pastel painting by Sharon Bamber...

Terrible news. Our beautiful, beloved dog Lucky had to be put to sleep on the 20th March. He was just over one month shy of his 17th birthday. We are...

Big Bend National Park is big. Really, really BIG! We covered over 200km in one day, just scoping out the painting sites. And we didn’t even go to the state park next door. There’s so much fabulous stuff to paint that you could stay there for years and not paint the same thing twice (unless you wanted to of course).

My painting was really about the colours – the reds of the rocky outcrops against the flush of green from recent rains and the rich blue skies. Stunning. I’ve shown my painting and the photo of the same thing. I think it’s interesting to see what the eye sees but the camera doesn’t. For all you studio artists out there, I hope it shows why you shouldn’t just slavishly copy photographs!

Sometimes it’s interesting, I think, to see what I was painting. You can see all the choices I made while I translated the scene to my board. As artists, it’s these choices that help to say something about a place and convey our emotion. It’s our choices that make our work unique.

For people like me, that love rocky coastlines with waves crashing and tide pools full of anemones and other exciting creatures, here are a few places for you to check out. They are all easily accessible by vehicle and don’t involve long hikes carrying heavy art equipment