Nichole McDaniel

Nichole McDaniel was born in 1983 and grew up in Hebron, Indiana. Growing up, her grandfathers and father all did woodworking; creating windmills, furniture, images using a scroll saw, etc. Her mother and aunt added to the artistic presence in Nichole’s childhood, creating and designing crafts for local art fairs. In college, Nichole was exposed to many facets of art, and chose to concentrate on graphic design. After graduating first in her department with a Bachelors of Art from Western Illinois University, she found her way out to California to pursue her dream of being an artist. Her current works portray seascapes and abstracts; all inspired by the beauty of the beach and landscapes around her.

Nichole’s fascination of silhouettes began when she was very young in Indiana. Whether it was watching the sunset over the horizon and seeing the simple beauty that was outlined by the sun and natural landscape; or on the cold Winters days when the snow lays still on leaf bare trees branches outlining the organic silhouette of the trees.

She watched her family members use scroll saw patterns and use of negative and positive space to create an image, using bridges and islands is the same principle behind a stencil. In a Graphic Design class in WIU, she designed her first stencil of Marilyn Monroe. Over the last 8 years, Nichole’s stencils have grown more intricate and detailed, some taking up to 50 hours just to cut out by hand with an X-acto knife. The use of stencils allows for her to develop and control the composition while giving her the freedom to explore with color, patter and overall feel of a piece.

Her artwork tends to be full of bright vivid colors. Nichole uses aerosol cans, acrylic and coats many of her pieces in a uv epoxy resin. The spray of the aerosol cans allows for paint to get through the tiny cuts of her stencils, showing the detail and beauty of the stencil.

The simplicity of silhouettes takes art and design back to its true form. Designing her paintings using composition, colors, patterns, and textures. Nichole considers herself an artist not a painter, not limiting herself to a brush and paint.