My 25-year career producing and teaching surgical illustration has provided me an exposure to human anatomy and classical drawing techniques and the discipline necessary to sustain a commercial art profession. I have a Liberal Arts Bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University and a master’s degree in Art as Applied to Medicine from the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Serving as a medical illustrator at Stanford Medical School in California, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and finally as Director of Medical Illustration Services at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, led to a position as Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Graduate Program at UT Southwestern.
The transition to fine art was instigated by a local Friday night figure drawing group where painting from life, in both pastels and oil, I developed a love of the classical techniques for painting the figure Over the following 14 years, often meeting two evenings each week, my work began to attract awards and gallery interest while incurring a growing list of portrait clientele.
In 2005, my husband, and I moved our menagerie of 2 cats and 3 dogs, from Texas in the US, to Village Bay Lake on Quadra Island, British Columbia, Canada. Larry undertook the renovation of the resident indoor squash court turning it into an art studio that houses my two etching presses, two large easels, space for a model and plenty of wall space that serves as a gallery for visitors. A dream come true!
I am currently a Signature Member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, and a Fellow and former President with the Association of Medical Illustrators. My DVDs in pastel and oil portraiture were featured in the North Light Book Club and excerpts can be seen on YouTube: “Steps to a Likeness: Pastel Portraits” and “Steps to a likeness: Oil Portraits”. By 2016, my YouTube channel for the oil portrait video had received over 1,000,000 views, and now both videos are available as *downloads on Vimeo. American Artist, International Artist, The Best of Portraiture, and The Pastel Journal have all showcased my work and I was commissioned by Prismacolor to undertake testing materials and producing a portrait for the marketing and packaging of a new line of soft pastels.
Annually, I have been a part of the Quadra Island Studio Tour, held the first weekend in June, with over 40 artists participating. It’s a great opportunity to watch an etching or portrait demonstration. I continue to accept portrait commissions and plein-air sketching, usually in oil or gouache, has become a part of my regular routine. I have been investigating non-toxic printmaking techniques and enjoy incorporating the local wildlife and landscape, into my prints. I guess after years of ‘red for the arteries, and blue for the veins’ I just needed to break out and tell my own story.
