Sue commented on my last work in progress shot of Rusty, and it occurred to me that many of you guys don’t know much about my background as an artist! So I whipped out a couple of my really, really old pieces and figured what the heck. Here you go:

When I was in high school, I took an art class. My teacher was a little strange, he wasn’t at all encouraging. I wanted to pursue a career in Graphic Art & Design and was accepted at Columbia Art School in downtown Chicago. I enjoyed art class basically because I had a fun group of friends and we giggled a lot. I have some very neat pottery pieces that my mom still has out on display, I weaved a very nice rug/wall hanging that has been lost along the way, and a few pieces that I drew in class and have hung onto over the years.

In high school, I was commissioned to do posters from album covers (one that I remember distinctly was a Scorpion’s Blackout album cover), I drew Bruce Springsteen and some other things for classmates and people going off to college.

This one is one I’ve hung onto, I really like how she turned out and I learned a lot from this piece. It’s a model from a magazine (for Sun-In, remember that stuff?). I’ll tell you without hesitation now that my teacher gave me a C- on this piece, and if memory serves I did this when I was in 10th grade.

So I met my hubby, and over the summer that I could have been getting ready to go off to Art School for some formal training, I was falling in love. I drew this Snowy White Egret back in ’89, the year I graduated high school. It looks a lot better in person, and would look better had I scanned it, but I just took a quick pic for you to see it.

I didn’t get graded on that one, but it is one that we’ve had hanging in our apartments and homes since we’ve been together. I painted it with some oriental wax crayon that I thought was interesting, and the fine feathery lines make it appear really delicate in person.

Up until a few years ago, I worked only in colored pencils and usually was commissioned to do something about once a year after I would get to talking about loving to draw and maybe showing pics or something hanging in our house that I did to friends or family.

When Jayden (the Chickeymonkey) was born, things just went in a whole new direction for us. Mark had some great things happening, and I really didn’t need to go back to work so I hung out at home and doodled and did some productive artful things that ultimately turned into what you see now.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have an amazing group of extremely talented and honest artist friends who open my eyes a little wider every time we chat about the technicalities of what I’m doing or where I want my talent to go. I pray. I feel very strongly that my gift is developed more by the Holy Spirit than myself, so I try when I’m painting to learn from what I’m being shown by my own brushstrokes and mixtures.

I’ve kept a couple of things in mind with every new painting. First, this piece will be my new best piece. Second, to paint what I see, not what I know is there. Both of these little gems were handed down to me by my Guardian Angel Mentor.

Now here it is, a few years later. I’m in a completely different medium, some say the hardest medium to learn, and I feel comfortable here. I know there are new grounds I want to try, larger pieces I want to paint, and more people whose lives I would love to touch somehow with my work. Every painting teaches me something I didn’t know before, and I feel even more blessed being able to have the opportunity to learn it.

/about me.

xoxoxo