'I've always been interested in art and always wanted to do something, but I didn't do much before that,' she said.
It wasn't until her children were far enough along in school that she found some free time and was able to learn how to paint.
'A friend told me about the art league and I went hunting for it,' she said.
The friend spotted a picture of a kitten Sutton had painted on a tin for her bowling league and thought she might be interested in the art league. Sutton didn't know about the organization until then or the 'magic' it could give her.
'I always felt that I liked oil painting but I thought I couldn't do it. I thought there was something magical and just thought that I couldn't do it,' she said.
It turned out the Norwin Art League classes brought out Sutton's talent. In less than four years, she was not only taking classes, she was teaching them.
First she assisted with adult classes, then was assigned classes of her own.
'After I got started painting, I got into doing the adult classes,' she said.
After a few years teaching adults, Norwin Art League President Patti Vaughn asked Sutton to teach a children's oil painting class in 1984.
'I think she was kind of the grandmotherly type and thought she would enjoy it,' Vaughn said. 'She's patient with them. Now she's been at it a long time.'
Sutton teaches oil painting, but she also loves to dabble in watercolors.
'I like to paint Alla-Prima, when you start and you finish in one sitting. Once I leave it, I lose momentum or something. Once I leave it, I want to go and do something else,' she said.
'I like to sit down and paint from start to finish. That's why I feel like I like watercolors better right now. I could get it pretty much done in one sitting.'
When she starts painting a picture, she'll finish it right then and there. Maybe she'll touch it up the next day, but overall, the finished product is done the same day it's started. Sutton does not paint any pictures larger than 16' by 20.'
And many times, she'll use a canvas much smaller than that.
FLOWERS AND MINIATURES
Sutton first painted a miniature after she saw a tiny frame in an art supply magazine while she was serving as the art league's supply person.
She ordered a few of the small frames about the size of a quarter, bought a magnifying glass, stripped a brush to 'a very few hairs' and went to work.
'Well, I always thought doll houses were interesting and never had one when I was younger, but then had three granddaughters,' she said.
'I ordered a couple of (the frames) out of curiosity and painted a picture for my granddaughter's doll house. I just wanted to see if I could've done them that tiny.'
She usually paints her miniatures with subjects she teaches in her children's classes.
'When you work with children, you tend to keep the subject matter simple,' she said.
And when she works in miniature, she likes to do the same.
It makes sense that Sutton excelled at painting miniature landscapes.
'I don't like to paint huge paintings. I'm not comfortable painting that large. I'm what they call tight, I paint tight,' she said.
She focuses on sharp details and tries to pack as many of those details in a small space as possible.
Which is one reason she enjoys painting flowers: The challenge of capturing the correct details of such a delicate subject.
She started flower painting through a process called China painting, where an artist will grind up a colored powder, mix it with oil, and then paint with the mixture on glass and ceramics.
She then discovered the work of Katherine Galey and Janis Schilling, two western Pennsylvania artists who have painted flowers.
'I thought their flowers were beautiful. I thought if I could make my flowers as soft as the flowers on the China painting, I achieved my goal,' Sutton said.
She learned of Galey's and Schilling's work through workshops the artists gave at the Norwin Art League.
When she paints flowers, she will take one flower and snap a bunch of photographs of it from all sides. She then can paint a bunch of flowers using only the details obtained from one specimen.
Sutton still serves the art league as the membership secretary and the supply secretary, and still is a teacher there. She has won several prizes at local art shows, but that hardly matters to Sutton.
'I win more prizes there than I do at the local shows,' she said with a laugh.
What is important to her is that she loves to paint small pictures, some as large as the tip of a man's thumb. And she loves to teach children and adults the magic she learned as a student in the Norwin Art League.
