“When I was twelve, I painted my bedroom purple. And at age five my butterfly drawings had rounded wings, not at all like the “triangle” wings of my first-grade classmates. I didn’t realize until I grew up that God had not only given me a gift as a “creative” who sees the world through artist eyes, but that I was meant to share my gift with others by teaching.

My journey as an artist goes both backward and forward. What has come before as I worked with pencil and paint and what will happen next as I experiment with new ideas and techniques are both my history and my future. My story continues with my new oil and cold wax and transparent watercolor paintings. I love to create an impression of luminosity in my subjects of wildlife and nature and call my style of painting “impressionistic realism”. While balancing good design concepts, my goal is always to render a likeness creatively rather than photo realistically.”

Painting is really fun for me and when I paint I am in my “happy place”! Whether working in oil or watercolor, I begin each painting with a compositional plan of lights and darks in a 2” x 3” pencil sketch. When working in oil on canvas, wood or aluminum panels, I first apply a layer of white acrylic gesso or liquid color such as acrylic transparent ink, colored gesso or watercolor straight from the tube and let it dry. In order to build texture, I mix my oil paint with cold wax medium and apply it with brushes, scrapers, brayers, and palette knives. When working with watercolor the process is similar and I apply the paint with brushes or mix the paint with water and spray or “pour” the paint onto watercolor paper. Working in both mediums, I paint many layers of transparent and opaque glazes that create a “history” of color, brush strokes and texture to create each original “deconstructed” painting.