SHEILA Pringle started painting before most children learn to read. Says the Charleston-based artist: “I started at 3. When I was 5, my mother took me to the Corcoran School of Arts and lied about my age. I studied there until I was 15.”

Decades later, Pringle continues to practice her craft, though her path has not been without obstacles. After studying and working as a landscape architect, Pringle started a family. A few years later doctors discovered a brain tumor in her frontal lobe.

During her recovery, Pringle returned to her passion. “The first day they gave me medicine I started painting,” she says. Pringle soon joined Perspective Gallery in Mount Pleasant, where she shows her mainly figurative artwork. “I enjoy painting people. I paint them as I find them. … It’s life in South Carolina,” she says.