Mary Aslin
MASTER ARTIST
Unlock Your Artistic Potential
Mentorship is the fastest way to go from where you are today, to where you want to be!
Learn How Mentorship Works or join this mentors group below.
Not sure what stage you are? Click here for descriptions.
Mentoring Emerging Artists
Not sure if you’re an emerging artist? Find your stage here.
MEDIUMS: Acrylic | Oil | Drawing | Gouache | Conte | Pastel | Watercolor
SPECIALTY: ✔ Technique ✔ Business
We are all born to create and when that drive leads to painting the beauty all around us, it seeds a journey replete with abundance. To do our best work requires two things: The first and most important is understanding who we are and what moves us! The second is the ability, with sound technical skills, to express that!
A good mentor will first listen and observe. Who you are and what you love is key to where you place your heart in the painting space of that rectangle, which in turn, drives your design and composition. Next, a good mentor targets and helps you develop and refine the drawing and painting skills required to realize your vision.
When your inspiration and technical excellence merge and grow, your unique style becomes evident and evolves, and a good mentor will keep you on track.
Finally, how we share our art with the world so that others can appreciate it completes the circle that began with our inspiration. There are many channels—social and business-oriented—for doing so, and a good mentor will guide you according to your goals.
I’m so excited to be offering mentorship to Emerging Artists through Mastrius! This warm, friendly, supportive, and non-competitive community, conveniently accessed online, offers an ideal complement to the solitary work required of an artist.
- In our small group, the feedback, teaching, and guidance you will receive will be personal and specific to you and your inspiration:
- referencing a sound framework of 35 years of knowledge, including the work of historic and contemporary master artists,
- offering a comprehensive range of approaches and sound teaching for developing drawing and painting skills and the types of media best suited for doing so
- learning the multitude of options for sharing your art with the world.
Significant growth in vision, skills, and confidence as you create art that you can be proud of is the goal!
I’m so eager to be your mentor and share what I’ve learned about creativity and working as an artist over the past 35 years, and I can’t wait to walk alongside you on this next stage of your creative journey!
Mary’s EXPERTISE
Listed below are this Mentor’s specialty skills. Join this group if you want to grow in these areas.
Specialty: ✔ Technique ✔ Business
Technique:
Composition & Color
Technique Demos
Supplies and Tools – what to use, where to save, and where to spend
Studio Setup for Art Production
Teaching How to Self Critique
Providing Art Critiques
Marketing:
Shows & Exhibits
Artist Statement & CV
Website Design
Business:
Pricing Artwork
Studio Time Management
Running Your Art Business, the Day- to-Day
“Mastrius is a perfect balance of accountability, community and fun.
It feels like family. Family that makes you a better you.”
~ Elizabeth, Emerging Artist
JOIN NOW
select your mentorship group
If the group you’re interested in has a waitlist, you have the option to join another group to get started. When your group opens we can transfer you over.
Your Membership Includes (click here):
- Mentorship Session: Meet via video conference for a monthly 2-hour session with your Mentor and small group. You choose the mentor, we provide the group!
- Mid-Month Session: Meet via video conference for a 1-hour session with your small group and Navigator to connect, share progress, encouragement, and support.
- Weekly Events: Attend LIVE weekly events online, on hot topics like Finding Your Style, Composition & Critiques, plus master DEMOS. Access event recordings!
- MyStudio: Access your private online studio space equipped with business tools and Mentorship Session Recordings.
- Chat Group: Access your private online chat group to connect with your small group and Navigator (group facilitator) anytime.
- Discounts: Enjoy member discounts on LIVE and ON-DEMAND courses, art supplies, and more!
Emerging
Mentorship MembershipNext session: May 07, 2025
On the 1st Wednesday of every month
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM MDT Wed
Not your timezone? Click below
MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST
ARTIST STATEMENT
Thirty-six years ago, after forgoing an art degree because the rigor and content of the courses I wanted were not available at the time, I took my first oil painting class at the local art center, then moved to watercolor.
My art career slowly but surely unfolded and gained momentum. How? Let me count the ways: many workshops and atelier classes, hundreds of hours of life drawing, a course in anatomy for artists, devouring art books and studying the masters, both historic and contemporary, continual painting from life, visits to many of the world’s art museums, a relentless focus on understanding design, and continual practice, were (and continue to be) dogged pursuits. All of this eventually led to an artist-in-residency, 15 years of art shows, portrait, still life, and pet commissions, invitations to international group shows, awards in juried shows, signature membership in many art organizations, publication in many books and magazines, and extensive teaching, including international workshops.
And I only present this background only so that you can understand the basis from which I hope to share, all that I know, so that you can develop your art life according to your own goals. Whether it is improving your design or drawing skills, understanding how to render form with light and shadow and/or color temperature, develop an understanding of color harmony, poetry of edges and atmosphere in a painting, learn which master painters should be studied for the approach you seek, pack an art bag for plein air painting, find a following, host a studio show, write an email newsletter, work with a gallery, keep business records, or participate in an art show, I would love to help you grow as an artist.
I have also developed a guide called “Your DNA as an artist and how to figure it out”. It has been enormously helpful to my students as a framework for zeroing in on who they are and what they love, better illuminating the specific growth path for their artistic goals.
ARTIST BIO
As a 10 year old Mary completed her first plein air painting (not realizing at the time that it had such a special and fancy name!), seeding a lifelong desire to pursue the arts. She has studied with a many highly renowned artists and at the Gage Academy of Art, the Minnestoa River School of Fine Art, and at the Watts Atelier. A lifelong learner, she has read art books by the dozens, visited many of the world’s art museums, and continues a regular practice of life drawing. Honored with private and public commissions, Mary has also received awards from a multitude of international art societies, was an invited artist at two exhibitions in France, and has been featured in many books and publications. In addition to her membership in the Oil Painters of America, she is a juried Artist Member of the prestigious California Art Club, a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America and a Distinguished Pastelist with the Pastel Society of the West Coast. She is also a Master’s Circle Member of the International Association of Pastel Societies. Her art can be found in collections all over the world. Giving homage to the artists who have inspired her, Mary has led art workshops in France and Spain, locally in her home town, and in other parts of the U.S and will do so in Crete, Greece in October 2025. And she has been invited to exhibit with the Association Culturelle Artistique, Saint Brisson sur Loire, France, October and November 2025. Mary continues to delight in the thrill of painting the glorious nuances of light and color—and the stories of Beauty they tell—from and around her home in San Juan Capistrano, California.
