About — Cheryl Willcox Art

🌿 ABOUT CHERYL WILLCOX

Oil Painter of Light, Colour & Quiet Stories

I’m an autobiographical painter.
Everything I create is rooted in the life I’m living — the flowers on my table, the coastal light outside my door, the memories of my father’s garden, and the quiet rituals that shape my days.

My work blends realism with bold, expressive brushstrokes. I paint intuitively, letting colour, movement and atmosphere guide the story. Whether it’s a lily pond, a floral arrangement overflowing with life, or a still life built from objects that matter, each painting is a moment of my life held gently in oil paint.

🌸 Where My Work Begins

I live on the Central Coast of NSW, surrounded by beaches, bushland, and waterways.
This landscape is my daily reference — I walk it, photograph it, breathe it in.

In my studio, I paint what I notice:
the curve of a petal, the shimmer of water, the warmth of morning light, a favourite bowl, a small bunch of flowers gathered on a whim. Each painting becomes a quiet reflection — a visual diary entry — of the colours, seasons, and stories that shape my world.

Art, to me, is autobiographical.
We paint the life we’re living.

🌿 A Life of Art + Teaching

I began my career as a visual arts teacher in 1982, trained at Newcastle College of Advanced Education. For decades I taught students to see themselves as artists — to use their own lives, memories, and environment as powerful subject matter.

I later studied at Watts Atelier in California, refining my drawing and painting foundations.
A formative trip to China deepened my understanding of art’s cultural purpose and its ability to connect people through shared experience.

Today, I work as both an exhibiting artist and a mentor to creative women who are ready to reclaim space for themselves and their art.

🌺 What I Paint

Lily Ponds

Light on water, movement, reflection, energy. My lily pond works form a major body of my practice and continue to evolve.

Floral Stories

Lush, expressive arrangements painted from life — overflowing, imperfect, alive. These works celebrate abundance, memory and beauty.

Still Life

Objects with history, personality and sentiment. These paintings are quiet stories told through everyday things.

Landscapes

Coastal walks, early light, rock pools and wild gardens — painted with immediacy and atmosphere.

🌼 My Approach

I paint with a mixture of structure and spontaneity — building layers, embracing accidents, and letting the painting reveal its direction. My process is grounded in classical training but expressed with freedom and movement.

Collectors often describe my work as full of energy, light, and emotion.
Students describe my teaching as calming, encouraging, and quietly transformative.

🌸 Teaching & Mentoring

I teach women who’ve spent years showing up for others — and who are now ready to celebrate themselves through creativity.

In my workshops and Monday Mastery program, I guide artists to:

notice their world more deeply
build strong foundations
trust their instincts
develop expressive brushwork
paint the life they’re living

My studio is a place to reconnect with joy, colour, and creative confidence.

🌿 Exhibiting & Collections

My work is collected across Australia and internationally, and I exhibit regularly in solo and group shows, including upcoming exhibitions at Earp Distillery (2026) and Gosford Community Gallery (2026).

🌸 Beyond the Canvas

When I’m not teaching or painting, you’ll find me:

walking the beach near my home
gathering flowers
sketching ideas
playing with colour palettes
spending time with my husband Tim
followed around the studio by Jorge the cat

🌞 In All I Do…

I paint for women who are ready to celebrate their life — in beauty, in colour, in small joys.

My work is an invitation to slow down, notice the world around you, and live with art that feels personal, expressive and alive.

Cheryl Willcox is an Australian oil painter and mentor known for her luminous depictions of coastal light, lily ponds, florals, and the tender, everyday moments that shape a life.

Raised in a small country town in NSW, Cheryl discovered early that colour could be a kind of language — one that expressed what she felt long before she knew how to say it. After completing a Bachelor of Education in Art in 1982, she began a four-decade career as a visual arts teacher, eventually refining her craft through further study at Watts Atelier in California. A formative experience teaching in China deepened her understanding of art’s cultural and emotional power.

Now living on the Central Coast, Cheryl’s work is rooted in close observation of the landscapes she walks daily — the churn of turquoise surf against the rock shelves, the quiet shimmer of lily ponds, the wild tangle of overgrown gardens and seasonal flowers. These places aren’t just subjects; they are collaborators. Her impressionistic style blends realism with bold, intuitive brushstrokes, embracing accidents, movement, and the living energy of paint.

Across her evolving body of work — from the Lily Pond Trilogy to her intimate Small Joys rounds — Cheryl returns to a single truth: art is autobiographical. Every painting holds a memory, a feeling, a fragment of her story — from childhood poppies grown in her father’s garden to the reflective stillness of plein-air dawn sessions by the ocean.

Alongside her studio practice, Cheryl is a devoted mentor. Her workshops and Monday Studio classes help creatives strengthen their technique while also unlocking the deeper personal stories behind their work. Her teaching approach blends classic drawing foundations with expressive mark-making, encouraging artists to trust their eye, their body, and their intuitive responses to light, colour and form.

Cheryl now works as a full-time artist and mentor from her renovated home studio. Her paintings are collected across Australia and internationally, offering viewers a moment of beauty, breath, and connection — a reminder to pay attention to the small joys that colour our lives.

Cheryl’s new book for art lovers and learners is available on Amazon.

Cheryl's CV

EARLY LIFE

I didn’t know it at the time, but hanging on the walls of my Infants School were famous Artworks by Degas (Tumbling Ballerinas), Franz Marc (Red Horses) and Paul Klee (Slaying the Seals).

I remember being totally captivated by the images, the colour and the feelings I got from looking at what I would later discover were just prints. But it didn’t matter – my love of Art was born.

That initial feeling has never left me and it’s why Art continues to be my reason for being – through teaching, painting and experiencing it first-hand.
After years teaching high school Visual Arts, I left to concentrate on my own Art-making, studying classical drawing and oil painting at Watts Atelier and then being coached by Stefan Baumann of The Grand View TV Show.

What Fuels This Artist?

Read more about how I fuel my art and life……..

Learn more

Iconic Works

These paintings mark creative milestones in my journey — pieces that challenged me, deepened my process, or opened new doors in how I teach and see the world.

Each one has a story, and a presence that continues to influence how I paint today.

Lily Pond Triptych

Lily Pond Triptych

This was the beginning — a bold, expressive triptych that found its way into my own home and heart. With these panels, I began exploring layered light, reflection, and the rhythm of the water.

It also sparked the teaching methods I now share in my workshops: the concept of The Circle Within, tonal mapping, and the expressive elegance of ‘C’ and ‘S’ curves.

Painted in: 2023 – Currently in the artist’s collection

The Story, the Song, the Studio

Still water, Moving Light

Explore the Triptych

Still Water, Moving Light (Available for Purchase)

A more refined sibling to the Lily Pond Triptych, this series captures the gentle choreography of light gliding across water. There’s more quiet here — a stillness — but also deep movement beneath the surface. Goldfish flicker, lilies bloom, and the composition flows across three distinct yet connected panels.

This series is available as individual paintings or as a full set, and has been professionally photographed and presented in interior mockups to help you imagine it in your space.