Over the past few decades, a Southwest Washington contemporary artist who lives near Rochester has cultivated her love of many different forms of art as well as a personal landscape filled with uncommon shrubs and flowers.

The home and gardens of Joan Hitchcock are bursting with color and form.

In her home studio, shelves filled with art supplies line the walls and dozens of colorful paintings cover the ceiling.

A strikingly-realistic self-portrait and a felted dragon keep watch.

“I work in multiple mediums and like to try new methods,” Hitchcock said. “And I really like sculptural things. When creating, I most often start with a plan but then it evolves.”

She works primarily in acrylic paints, but also dyes silks and combines it with wool to create wearable art and wall art.

She occasionally offers classes in various mediums, and also participates from time to time in master art classes to continue to build her skills.

In her studio, large felted wool flowers protrude inches from the painted canvases to which they’re attached. The three-dimensional canvases are lifelike and colorful with the flowers cascading or posing as if they spring from soil.

Acrylic paintings of trees created with a palette knife also cause one to look again, drawing viewers to the shadows and ridges of textured bark or leaves.

Hitchcock is currently using her palette knife in a commission of two 30-by-48 complementary seasonal paintings — both looking upward to treetops, one depicting springtime and the other depicting the fall, with each leaf and stem seemingly ready to move on a breeze.

Noting she is inspired by nature and color, Hitchcock said she is also moved by certain architecture and takes frequent photographs of buildings, landscapes or flowers for potential future works of art.

As a young child, she was always making something.

“One of my teachers told my parents, ‘You really need to buy her some art supplies,’” she recalled. “So they did, and after that, I would come home from school and do art.”

She has won several juried art awards. The public at large also favors her works.

Hitchcock joined the regional ARTrails of Southwest Washington in 2008 and over the years often won first place in the People’s Choice Awards at the organization’s annual exhibit at the Centralia Train Depot.

A member of Women Painters of Washington and the National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society, Hitchcock’s works have been featured in online shows for a global audience and as special exhibits in various galleries.

Locally, her works are shown at The Rectangle Gallery in Centralia.

Semi-retired, besides spending time in her art studio, Hitchcock tends to her gardens and travels.

Visitors to her home studio follow a curved pathway edged with unusual and rare plants. A large water feature edged in rocks and greenery centers the landscaped front yard. A fish sculpture peeks from a shrub covered in dainty roses; large colorful flowers are etched in concrete along the pathway.

To create the design of curved plantings and islands of shrubs and flowers in the front yard, she used a hose to create desired curves and then climbed on the roof to approve the layout. Towering aspen trees edging the property were planted by Hitchcock 35 years ago. A two-story, colorful, chalet-style building in the backyard complements the floral and sculptural forms throughout the property.

Landscaping is clearly part of Hitchcock’s lifelong artistic passion and process.

“I like to find new or unusual plants to add in,” she said. “I plant things, and then I want to paint.”

For more information, visit www.beyondtheloopcreations.com.

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