If you ask Shan Fannin about her recent work, each piece brings a smile to her face. With paintings in various hotels like Marriott and The Kessler Collection, there are many eyes on her exciting artworks.
Shannon and her husband travel to events to display her pieces; most recently, at The Amelia Concours d’Elegance, people from all over the world get to see her paintings. These events also offer new inspiration in the way of viewing cars ranging from old Volkswagen busses to Corvettes and everything in between. She’s even got some work in space (more on that later).
Art wasn’t always on Shan’s radar, but after her kids went off to college, the opportunity to take some art classes sort of fell into her lap. A serendipitous approach to her next step in life. As a reminder, one of her first paintings still hangs in their dining room.
Shan’s Painting Process: From Inspiration to Masterpiece
I asked Shan to explain her painting process, as most painters don’t have a very linear approach. “I have a whole bunch of paintings; I think I’m working on like 11 paintings at the same time.” As you might have seen, many of her illustrations have reflections and other small details that take a long time. Starting one painting and switching to another gives Shan time to perfect those small details and the bigger parts of the images, like the backgrounds and the outlines of the vehicles. “All the newness and the fun is gone, and now I’ve got to pull all of the reflections together, get the tiny brushes, things like that.”
Inspiration is everywhere when it comes to finding subjects. One of her most recent pieces displayed at Amelia Island was inspired by a photograph of a bus taken during her first show there in 2016. That’s how Shan usually finds her subjects: random photos from shows taken by herself or someone else.
She has an extensive database of trains, planes, and cars to choose from. You can actually submit a cool photo of a car to her for consideration, and it might become a painting one day! During the pandemic, this was one way of finding inspiration without leaving the house.
You might also notice that Shan doesn’t always paint the whole vehicle. She tends to focus on one area that she finds exciting, like a fender or an extraordinary interior—”Something that stands out,” she says. Perhaps that’s what makes people so drawn to her work. It isn’t just a painting of a car. It’s a reflective view of the sun hitting a cool headlight or a close-up of a cool old Cadillac seat.
Peeling Back the Layers: The Fine Details
Some paintings are like an onion. You have the background, the bigger details, and then many more layers until the final touches are done. In her scrubs and painting gear, she tends to paint the background first with whatever main color makes sense. Using paper plates to mix the right colors, she’ll store those in a plastic bag and come back to them later. Then, it’s on to the next one while that piece dries. Using an iPad, she likes to zoom in on the details and get the next layer started.
Even though much of her portfolio is dedicated to cars, there are also many planes and trains. Shan says she loves car shows and meeting people to find out their favorite transportation modes. Many classic cars are in the mix because people seem to connect with them. She loves to hear that one vehicle might have been someone’s first car or that the motorcycle she’s painting is one their father had back in the day. That’s a unique connection with the artwork that both the artist and the viewer have.
Art in Space: The Lunar Codex Project
When I asked what the furthest one of her works had traveled, I anticipated Dubai or even Australia. What I did not expect was for her to say “space.” The Lunar Codex project by Incandence sends various art forms to space. So far, six capsules containing 35,000 pieces of paintings, music, film, and writings have been launched to the moon. NASA sent some scientific instruments to the United Launch Alliance (ULA) or Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), and the capsules of artwork also went up.
This most recent launch has five paintings by Shan that went up to the moon as part of the project. These include a close-up of a cool old hotrod headlight, an Alfa-Romeo grille, a piece of a cool checkered plane, and more hyper-realistic car parts, as you can see above. The project has pieces from 166 countries, even including Antarctica, and has a representative from all 50 states and all 13 Canadian provinces and territories. A time capsule of sorts, Shan’s work will hopefully land in the hands of someone in a completely different time and space (no pun intended) many centuries from now.
Shan is shooting for the moon and literally landing among the stars. Not many people can say that. You can follow Shan on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with her recent creations, and you can catch her next in September at the Grand Bohemian Gallery in Charleston, North Carolina.
