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Just helped Jury this awesome art exhibit at 3 Square Art Gallery in Fort Collins! Please come by and see the show!  I am honored to be featured in the Jan/Feb issue of Pastel Journal magazine. Thank you Enid Wood for writing such a beautiful piece!
I had a great studio tour this year in my new classroom space! Over the two weekends, I had about 50 people stop by. I really enjoyed talking to so many art enthusiast and made some great connections...Thanks to all who made it out. Another bonus was that I was able to finish a nice little oil landscape!
I recently participated in "Pastels on 5th," a fundraiser for local organization Alternatives to Violence, who helps women and children caught in domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. This sidewalk chalk festival allows artists in our community to contribute towards the greater good and for a short time adorn our streets with color! This is my third year participating...I chose this amazing eagle as my muse and he turned out great. My drawing also won 2nd place from the juried panel...yeah!
The works of art below are on display at Independence Gallery in downtown Loveland, Colorado. If you are in town please come by and check them out! Created this lovely succulent drawing in a chalk festival fundraiser for a local organization: Alternatives to Violence! Had a great time in the beautiful Colorado sun...Thanks to Ken Jessen for being my sponsor and to all who volunteered for Pastels on 5th!                    Three of my sculptures were exhibited at 3 Square Gallery in Fort Collins last month. The juried exhibition titled "Figure That" showcased a variety of figurative works from local artists. My Sculpture "Absent" won 2nd place! It was a great turn out and I enjoyed getting to know some other local artist!
I recently finished a mural for the Resurrection Fellowship Church prayer room. The mural is about 13 x 11 feet and portrays the facade of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The painting wraps around an arch which is the entry into the prayer/art room...I am excited to be finished with this project! I was a participating artist this summer at Loveland's Art in the Park Festival! The first Art in the Park was held in 1966 at Dwayne Webster Park (Cannon Park) on the south side of Lake Loveland, and had less than 20 participating artists. This festival has developed into a two-day event featuring over 200 artists and artisans. Art in the Park has emerged as an artisan event that draws people from all over the country. Art in the Park also shows the same weekend as the internationally renowned Sculpture in the Park. These events combined draw over 30,000 people to Loveland. I had a great time exhibiting my art as well as having the opportunity to chat with people about my artistic process...I would definitely participate again! My husband Brian Hill also had the chance to play some of his newly composed songs which were greatly received! You can check out his music at http://theblindleadstheblind.com Several months ago I was commissioned to create my first mural! The office room where the mural was painted had no exterior windows and the client wanted me to create a landscape so that the employees felt like they were looking outside. After multiple preliminary sketches they chose the image of the Santa Monica pier. On the wall I started with a charcoal drawing to lay out the composition, then started right in with acrylic paint. I began with the sky mixing up large quantities of the colors being used so that I would not run out. I then proceeded to paint the mountains followed by the sand and ocean, the pier and life guard post were painted last. I have always wanted to paint a mural and I really enjoyed the process. The only difficulty I had was climbing up and down the ladder while I was six months pregnant, but I managed! The scale is 9 x 12 feet
 This small pastel was executed in about two hours. A pregnant friend of mine wanted to model so that the memory of her pregnancy could be captured.
 This graphite drawing of an ancient Greek sculpture was drawn on a 5 x 7 inch card for a fundraiser for a private children's school. It is always a challenge to work tiny, but I think it turned out well.
Recently finished watercolor painting from my summer painting trip to Italy! I had started this piece on my trip, creating the drawing from life sitting gazing up at this amazing view of the hilltop town of Assisi. The drawing was difficult due to the complexity of the town's architecture, but with anything that seems daunting.....I took a deep breath and said "here it goes!" I first started by mapping put the different layers of buildings and arches that make up the basilica and monastery of San Francesco which is the primary building cluster in the front of the composition. Once the larger structures were placed then I could fill in the rest of the smaller buildings including the medieval imperial fortress of Rocca Maggiore on the top of the hill... in the foreground azalea flowers bloomed. The town, background and sky are done with watercolor only whereas the foreground grasses and flowers are a combination of watercolor with pastel on top.
I wanted to share some photos from my last trip to Italy one year ago. Last year I was invited to partake in an artist residency program in Tuscany. These photos consist of images including some of the artwork I completed while I was there, plus some photos of the area where I stayed! I went to the program with three other artist and I had a great time. Please check it out. Stayed tuned for pictures of my latest trip to Italy from this summer, some new paintings are posted below!
Sometimes you just need a break from your normal routine! I recently painted these two still lifes for a fundraiser silent art auction. I wanted to paint something fun, bright and colorful and this is what I came up with... I painted the objects from observation then inserted Matisse inspired backgrounds behind to spice things up a bit. The process was enjoyable and I definitely felt like a child again creating the colorful backgrounds. These paintings were done in acrylic paint, I have a feeling that I will be working more in acrylic in the future because it will enable me to work really large, not having to worry about framing like I do with my pastel work. side note: bell peppers are my most favorite vegetable to paint...great shapes!  "Peppered Color," acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 inches  "Lemon Slice Matisse," acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 inches 
This was a pastel drawing from my Italy trip that I completed recently. This cypress lined avenue which is so typical of Tuscany, was just down the road where I was staying outside of Buonconvento. It was a very windy day, it had rained quit a bit the previous days and now the sun was shinning bright! Spring flowers just started to pop up from the earth....red and yellow, the air was clean and crisp. Ah.....another wonderful day in Italy!
  I recently have had the privilege of having my pastel painting "Passing" printed in the April 2014 issue of the Pastel Journal art magazine. This was an international competition open to all artist working in the medium of chalk pastel, I received an honorable mention in the portrait/figure category. My first publication! The same piece is also on display til April 7th at the Pico House Gallery in downtown Los Angeles!  "Passing," pastel on paper, 40 x 50 inches  The pastel painting of my friends Morgan and Jon is slowly progressing along. There is now pastel on most of the top half of the painting as well as the portraits and Jon's figure. The bottom half of the image is still just the charcoal drawing and gouache under painting...I have a long way to go.
This is the transition from black and white into color. The charcoal drawing is complete and I have started to loosely block in large fields of color with opaque gouache paint. I will continue the under-painting until every shape, excluding the faces and hands, are covered with a thin layer of gouache paint. I will then begin to layer pastel on top of the gouache, rendering and finessing each form until I deem it worthy of completion.
  The troops are marching in...two sculpture casts are ready for an upcoming art show!
The drawing has come quit a long way. A few more elements need to be added to the clutter on the floor then I will be ready for COLOR!
I have begun the process of starting on a new large pastel drawing. I wanted to share a little bit about my process of how I begin a large painting. First, and I would think the most important start to a large work of art is having a creative thought as to what you are trying to say with the piece, for me that is a narrative. Sometimes it takes a while for me to come up with a new idea for a new painting and it doesn't always "come to me" the same every time. Typically there will be an idea or theme in my mind based on thoughts or theories that I've recently been dwelling upon. Those thoughts and theories sometimes produce specific imagery in my mind as I ponder them, almost like receiving a vision (and I don't mean to sound hokey), but it literally is like a vision...a pictorial story that unfolds in my head. After I have the idea and direction for a new painting, I then organize a photo shoot with the models I think will best support the cast of my characters, they are usually family or close friends. I prefer working with people who are close to me because I will have a greater bond with my subject since I am familiar with their faces and personalities. When the photo shoot is finished I will start to sift through the images looking for the perfect pose, the perfect face, the best hand placement, the right angle. For this particular painting I took about 500 photos so that I would have plenty of options, knowing that something would definitely work. In the end I will most likely be working from 4-6 different photos composing different elements from each to make the final composition. Before staring on the final large drawing I will create a smaller preliminary drawing to work out placements and scale of the figures and their environment. From this preliminary sketch I will then start the larger final image. The pictures below are the start of the final composition in charcoal in which color will follow! |
