About the Artist
The Shaping of My Artistic Path began with My Earliest Happy Childhood Days with Many Simple Everyday but Enriching Artistic Experiences. Some were Fun Times just enjoying The Pretty Crayon Colors I used for coloring In Prettier Coloring Books that I received as Christmas and Birthday Presents. During This Same Time, under the Guidance of Two of My Older Sisters, I very much enjoyed creating Some Fun and Entertaining Captioned Storybook Illustrations in Pre-assembled Blank Paged Books that One of My Sisters put together for us at Our Family Kitchen Table, A Favorite Place to be for All My Arts and Crafts Fun and where My Mother also introduced me to The Great Joy of Finger Painting. Accompanying My Childhood Art Time Recreation, I also greatly enjoyed listening to One of My Sisters, who was Very Well Read, retelling Such Wonderful Famous Fairy Tales that further enhanced My Imagination to Better Envision how to Illustrate My Own Made Up Fairy Tales.
Then during my Mid-teens, I was given The Opportunity to begin learning Some Pallet Knife Oil Painting Techniques from a Very Nice Lady, Mrs. Mary DeFranco, a New Friend introduced to Our Family by a Man named Joe Zaldivar, a Friend who shared Musical Interests with Our Family. Happily, I enjoyed learning more Valuable New Methods from her for creating more Impressive Works of Art that further prepared me for My College and University Art Experiences. While attending These Schools, Some Favorite Art Techniques I learned included The Old Masters Technique Of Glazing in Oil Painting with Many Layers. I also enjoyed Scumbling Oil Paints and exploring and experimenting With Various Color Combinations.
After graduating with My B.A. in Fine Arts, I was invited by My Next Door Neighbor to Join A Local Women’s Artist Group where I was later asked to be Their Featured Artist at One of Their Last Women’s Art Shows prior to losing Our Beautiful Building to A Recreational Center’s Parking Lot that left us all very sad. Fortunately, I found another Special Place to keep increasing My Artistic Skills.
At this New Artist Center I began practicing how to do Airbrushing Backgrounds and then later Some Slight Tinting of Some of My Portraits that were Mainly Drawn with A Combination of Different Intensities of Pencils and Charcoal Pencils. Other Portraits I did were strictly done with Various Drawing Materials. I also started doing Figurative Portraits with Some Very Beautiful Colorful Pastel Pencils and then used Fixative to keep their Chalkiness intact. While learning more of My Personal Portraiture Techniques I created quite a Number of Portraits of Shirley Temple, Elizabeth Taylor and various other Celebrities. I have also done Some Family Portraits as well. Some years ago, One of My Very Kind and Generous Cousins Very Enthusiastically Paid for me to attend a Week Long Art Workshop with A Renowned Visiting Artist, Frank Covino, to learn his Own Unique Methods of An Old Masters Technique of Oil Painting Glazing Methods. This was a lot more involved than The First Old Masters Technique that I learned that I still love even more for my Own Preferences. I have also done a lot of Direct Oil Painting I have enjoyed a lot too. Other Mediums I like to use include Water Color and Some Acrylic I hope to do more of. And I have especially enjoyed creating Fairytale Pictures in Some of My Favorite Art Materials as simple as Color Pencils and Watercolor Pencils with all Their Many Very Beautiful Colors.
Though I wish I could have had More Out of Door Oil Painting Experiences I did go a Few Times With The Women’s Art Group and then with a More Established Artist, Gary Kapp, in The Grandeur of A Beautiful Canyon. Later I went with One of My Sisters who was also a Great Artist. We would have gone again if we didn’t have a Big Scare while we were Out in Nature. Some Other Artistic Interests I enjoyed at School were Arts and Crafts, like Sculpting in Various Materials such as Clay and Wax for Jewelry Making in The Lost Wax Method. I also did Some Simple Woodworking Projects, Stain Glass that I loved, Some Puppetry with Hand Puppets and Marionettes and putting on Little Shows etc. Then through a number of years with My Mother I enjoyed creating Beautiful Parties that also included making some of our Own Elegant Decorations and Many Pretty Floral Arrangements we made for Special Occasions for Family and Friends. Once I started creating Pretty Floral Arrangements, My Church Activity Leaders also wanted me decorating for Their Parties. Then I was also asked to bring My Prettiest Floral Arrangements to Church Every Sunday for A Few Years that All the Church Members kept telling me they loved so much. I also created some Extra Pretty Holiday-themed Dinner Parties for Some of My Church Friends who also loved The Beauty and Elegance I presented at My Dining Table. I was especially excited when I was able to create My Own Special Artistically Rendered Framing for My Art Illustrations in My Books, which I am planning to do more of.
