Old Hotel Art Gallery features new artist of the month

OTHELLO — Pat Bullis is the featured artist this month at the Old Hotel Art Gallery in Othello.

Bullis has been painting for approximately 30 years.

“I was wandering around the store close to where we lived in Puyallup and thought it would be fun to paint,” said Bullis. “I saw painting supplies in the store and asked the clerk if there were any teachers in the area.”

Bullis found a teacher who was from Germany.

“I didn’t stay with her too many months,” Bullis said. “I thought, ‘Well I can do this on my own.’ In the meantime, I started work with a drawing instructor from California and a teacher from Tacoma in watercolor. I didn’t stay with either one very long. I thought I could do it on my own.”

After trying the different mediums, Bullis decided that she liked oil painting best. She has stuck with it ever since.

“It is time-consuming,” said Bullis. “I like to have two or three days a week, which is hard for me to find. I like to have a few days a week to play with my oil paint.”

Bullis draws inspiration for her paintings from artwork that she sees in art magazines.

“It just comes to me, I guess,” Bullis said. “There are things that I see that other artists do. I will like part of it; the other part I don’t. I change it around. It is fun to be creative.”

Animals and birds are Bullis’ favorite things to paint.

“I’ve painted a lot of animals, flowers and ocean pictures, birds and other animals,” said Bullis. “I would probably do a lot better if I stuck to one animal or bird. But I like to play with all of them.”