Review #2

After wasting a few college years being convinced that Fine Art was not a "real" profession, I decided to get back to the roots of what I love. Seeing the work of Marvin Mattelson made me realize there is, indeed, a market for art and clients who want realism. So, I did what any rational artist would do: I rebelled against all the teachers I'd had that taught realism was baaaaaaad while abstract was gooooood--and went to super tight portrait work. At my peak, I was turning out stuff like this painting of Dr. Lew and Cheryl Roht:



Since then, I've fallen more in love with painters who magically blend realism with looser, more expressive brushwork. My biggest hero was William Whitaker, who was kind enough to let me study under him any time I was in his area. I spent weeks under his tutoring (and still do on occasion) and learned invaluable lessons I never would have learned any other way.

As I continued to develop, I studied more and more historical as well as modern realists and am starting to really filter out what I simply admire from what I want to become. I'm still not there yet, so I feel my work lacks some cohesion, but my style is definitely starting to emerge. After playing with the knife and some high-contrast lighting, this recent painting is one of my favorite Plein Air landscapes so far:



My good friend Mara Schasteen convinced me to start this blog to chart my growth from here and I invite you to join me. Hopefully, this journey will be helpful to those of you who are also finding your unique artistic voice in a sea of "anything goes."

Review #1

Since this blog is about my journey as an artist--and I'm already 20+ years into that journey--I better give a short background.

I began as most artists do: drawing incessantly. By the time I was 11, I was selling portraits of dogs at AKC shows to kind people who had pity on my makeshift "lemonade stand" way of selling things. Here I am then:



I was turning out pictures like this after I ventured into color (in this case, Prisma colored pencils):



And by high school, I decided to try my hand at painting. This is one of my first acrylic paintings--an assignment to put together a still life:



I loved to draw and grew up with an image of myself as a stay-at-home mom, running an art business from home in my spare time. Though the details are still being worked out, the only thing about that image that has changed is the realization that there is no such thing as "spare time!"

Opening Day

Sometimes I laugh when I think about all the "mysticism" surrounding the profession of an artist. Why images of berets--or, worse, purple hair and spikes through the lip--are conjured up in my own mind, I will never know. Except it does serve to remind me that the power of stereotypes can still benefit me--especially when I've forgotten yet another important date or delivery and someone says, "It's okay, aren't all artists a little loopy?"

But stereotypes aside, I'm just an average girl on an average journey, trying to figure out what kind of art career I want to have "when I grow up." I thought I should wait until I had it all figured out before I exposed myself in cyberspace; but at the encouragement of my Artistic Accomplice, Mara Schasteen, this blog is actually about that journey of figuring it all out. I hope you enjoy it; or better yet, I hope it helps you on your journey.