Artist's Paintings Capture Boston Marathon Action

BOSTON (CBS) -- Just by looking at Hope Phelan's Boston Marathon paintings, you can feel the energy behind them.

Whether it's the dark days of training, the excitement at the start line, or the exhilaration of the end, she captures marathon mania.

"It's just kind of an amazing feeling, all these people are trying to get you to cross the finish line and you don't even know them," Phelan told WBZ-TV.

Hope has always been a painter and a runner. The marathon bombings caused those two worlds to collide.

"I did hear the bombs go off...it was heartbreaking," she said.

After the marathon, Hope spent the next few days trapped indoors as Boston police searched the city for the Tsarnaev brothers.

"Usually when I'm stressed out, I go for a run. I had just run a marathon so I wasn't going to run then and we were stuck inside because of the manhunt so I just started painting," she says. "I was definitely throwing paint on the canvas and just slapping it on, not caring about what I was making.

"I wasn't trying to make a specific image, I was just putting paint on canvas. This is what came out," Phelan said, referring to one of her creations.

The piece touched so many people that she kept going. Now she has an entire collection of marathon paintings, but her work has taken on a different tone.

"The more I make them, the more I remember the good things and forget about the bad parts," Phelan said.

Prior to the bombings, Phelan says she always painted blurry landscapes, but now her vision is clear. She paints Patriots Day how it was before 2013, how it should be: as a celebration, filled with hope.

Hope's work can be seen all weekend long and Marathon Monday at the Right On Hereford Left On Boylston store on Newbury Street.