After spending nearly two years aboard a sailboat and cruising the West Coast, I really came to appreciate the quality of light and how different latitudes could affect the way I would see a subject. My favorite experience evolves around capturing warm reflected light on bougainvillea-draped buildings in Mexico. That same investigation of how light plays off of an item is what galvanizes me into painting a subject. It doesn?t matter if it is a ferryboat or a bouquet of flowers.
When teaching, I try to get my students to ‘SEE’ the different ways that the color gray is present in our images. Everything shy of a pure color pigment is a mixture of primary colors that give us a whole world of beautiful grays. My grays have a whole lot of purple to them. The interaction of warm light and cool shadows is what excites me about painting.
I am third generation artist and am a winner of the coveted Skagit Valley Tulip poster contest for 2004 and the 2004 Edmonds Arts Festival Poster. I have designed Washington State’s new Heritage Birth Certificate and am currently working with Eddie Bauer on their Summer Catalog cover. My work can be found in both private and corporate collections locally and international, including France and the Netherlands.
I teach near my hometown of Anacortes, Washington, gateway to the San Juan Islands. I divide my time between that, painting for the local art festival circuit, keeping up with my eleven-year-old son and occasionally going sailing with my husband.
