Gallery

A natural love of drawing, the lure of flight and the encouragement of family and friends combined to set Susan Sinclair-Shields on a career trajectory focused on aviation-themed art.

Today an established member of the American Society of Aviation Artists with commissions hanging on walls from New York to Switzerland, Ms. Sinclair-Shields' childhood dreams have taken flight.

Raised in Kansas City, Ms. Sinclair-Shields developed a friendship in her late teens with Bill Schooling, an aerobatic pilot, who took her up in his Bushby Mustang Experimental. Mr. Schooling commissioned her first airplane painting.

At a local mall to have the painting framed, she met Glenn Messer, an aviation artist participating in a show at the shopping center. Mr. Messer offered to give the young artist free painting lessons in exchange for working at his studio. Ms. Sinclair-Shields continued those lessons for many years, and earned a degree in Commercial Art from Johnson Co. Community College. Her versatility as an artist exteends beyond aviation, to portraiture and graphic design. She has worked for Hallmark Cards, Inc. and numerous advertising agencies, illustrated World Wildlife Fund T-shirts and designed magazine covers for Aerospace Historian and Pilot News. All of her aerial work is painted in acrylic;
her portraits and landscapes are rendered in acrylic, pastels or colored pencil.