‘Everybody can paint’

OTHELLO — Nellie Hoot, the Old Hotel Art Gallery’s Artist of the Month, has been several kinds of artist in her time. 

“It’s been years of painting and going through different stages in my life,” she said. “For a while, I was doing pet portraits, because it makes me feel good and it was making me money as well. And then it started shifting into other things.” 

Some of the “other things” on display at the Old Hotel include watercolors, charcoal and oil paints on canvas, wood and even a handsaw. One of Hoot’s favorite surfaces is cymbals, because her husband, a drummer, keeps breaking them, she said. 

“He had a pile just sitting in a room,” she said. “And I was like, ‘What are we ever going to do with these?’ Because they're just sitting around. They’re garbage, basically, once you break them, and he doesn't like to throw things away. So, one day, I was just like, I'm going to repurpose these. And so, I started painting landscapes and mandalas on them, just whatever I felt like painting on them at the moment.” 

The cymbals on display at the Old Hotel include a mandala, a flower in oil paints and masking tape and a painting of the water tower in Othello. The water tower is also painted on an antique handsaw. 

“That water tower is so iconic to Othello,” Hoot said. “When I moved here, me and my husband … I thought it was so cool how much everybody loved the water tower here in Othello. So, I had to paint a couple so the Old Hotel could have (them).” 

Hoot has been making art since she was a small child, she said. She grew up in Ephrata and studied at the Art Institute of Seattle, which closed due to financial difficulties while she was there. She originally wanted to illustrate children’s books, but after the school closed, she started taking commissions for pet portraits and media art for bands. 

Hoot also offers painting classes, both at the Old Hotel and at private parties. She takes her inspiration from the late TV art teacher Bob Ross. 

“He would always say that anybody can paint,” she said. “I always loved that, and so I’ve kind of taken that with me to my paint parties. I truly believe that everybody can paint and everybody should paint.” 

The painting parties serve to make people more comfortable with the idea of creating art, Hoot said. 

“It's just such a fun time to have everybody come together and kind of loosen up a little bit,” Hoot said. “I think a lot of people are scared to paint because they haven't done it before, and it's like, you just need a little direction, but everybody can do it.” 

Besides the cymbals and the pet portraits, there’s a triptych, a painting on three separated panels of a mushroom and a watercolor painting with swirled-together forms of a mermaid, a chicken, a dog and other creatures not so easily identified. 

“That was actually me practicing with watercolors,” Hoot said. “I had never worked with watercolor before, and I was trying to see how the paint worked. So, I just took all the different colors and put them all on the paper, and then once it dried, I took a pen and I just traced out images I could see in the shapes.” 

Hoot’s art will be on display for both August and September, said Old Hotel Director Samantha Copas. 

“She has more work; she brought some and she’s planning on bringing more throughout the month,” Copas said. “She’s going to add a couple more pieces here in the next couple of weeks.” 

Hoot is working on starting her own business coordinating painting parties, called “It’s Arty Time,” she said. For her painting parties at the Old Hotel, she charges $20 per person.  

There’s one kind of art Hoot hasn’t tried, she said. 

“I’ve never done a mural,” she said. “I’ve done a painting on somebody’s bedroom wall, but I would love to do a big public mural.” 

“She's super talented,” Copas said. “She does some really good work.” 

    Artist Nellie Hoot leads a painting class in Othello. Hoot, the Old Hotel’s Artist of the Month, often offers classes at the Old Hotel and private painting parties.
  

    One of Nellie Hoot’s favorite painting surfaces is cymbals from her husband’s drum set. Here she used masking tape and oil paint to create a flower on a broken cymbal.
  

    Nellie Hoot honored her adopted hometown of Othello by painting its iconic water tower on an antique handsaw.
  

    This fanciful mishmash came from artist Nellie Hoot’s first attempt at working with watercolors.