Sandy Allnock spent her youth dreaming of becoming an art teacher, but after graduating from Frostburg State University, she landed instead in a long and successful graphic design career. A quarter century ago, she left that work to become a full-time artist and instructor. Sandy now delves into myriad styles in her work and mediums, depending on the day – from playful sketches to abstracts to realistic paintings. Her delight is exploring values, textures, and atmospheric perspective she sees all around her. Compositions might be landscapes, crashing seas, wildlife, fire, outer space—and especially everyday objects…anything is fair game, as long as she can play with the values.  

“I could spend a lifetime exploring DANIEL SMITH watercolors … nobody makes higher quality and provides all the info that we artists could want to know about every color. The range of hues, properties, and intensity provides endless inspiration for me to constantly ask, ‘What if I tried this color here?’ I encourage my students to get the best they can afford to get the best results, and it shows in their work as well as my own.”

Sandy's greatest joy is not only in her own painting process, but in watching her students take on creative challenges that stretch and grow them — because it inspires her to do the same in her own process. If she's not growing, she can't pull her students forward in their journey either. "It's not until an artist steps out to try what hasn't been done before that new creations enter the world. And we need that kind of creativity now more than ever."