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Working Action – Painting of the Week
Memories of 40 years as a Professional Artist
Many things have changed over my 40 years of painting as a professional artist. A customer commissioned “Working Action” and it won the Gold Medal Winner of the 1994 Red River Watercolor Society’s 2nd Annual National Exhibition an awesome organization that I proudly served as a charter member, and continue to learn so much from.
Trees were my first challenge. Every time I put one in a painting I wrecked it, so I went to work studying them. Becoming a mother inspired some Teddy Bear pieces breaking me out of my serious mode and brought warmth to my work. Those led to animal paintings and creating fuzzy textures with colorful whites. Gardening at our new house in 1990 introduced my Tapestry series where I set dark colors side by side, creating colored darks to show off the sparkling blooms. Chicken paintings started a new rage simply by practicing chickens during drying time as in “Hollywood Squares”. A conscious decision was made that it was ok and actually good to create paintings that were fun to make. Grids were added as an underlying structure to my animal paintings, and later with architecture, “Fargo” was created. Later, loose underpaintings were also used and added to camouflage animals in flowerbeds in “Where’s Petunia?” .
Teaching workshops has been helpful to me and my students by focusing on the basics. The most beautiful things happen by taking a little time to plan, working with what happens, and being in the moment. “Samson’s Gift” forced me to learn how to use acrylic as half of the paintings had to be done over. Now I love that medium too. Today; lakes, hills, mountains and trees call me to paint more landscapes as I struggle to attain simplicity.
Sincerely,
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