Our Son, AJ

This 10" by 8" oil painting is from a series of small paintings I've been working on recently.  Around the holidays, I just love to go through old family photos, and the one that inspired this painting caught my eye.  Our son, AJ is turning 20 in a few days!  (I feel like it was just yesterday when I was 20!-How could that be? ) AJ was an active child, and he just LOVED the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!  (In my defense, We really did read to him also and he loved books, especially Dr. Seuss) But when it came to those mutant turtles and any kind of dinosaur, AJ was as "obsessed" as you can call any two year old.  Here, my husband captured him in one of his "classic poses", where he is getting into the character of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. The photo was taken in front of our small apartment in San Pedro, but I chose to show AJ in an open "dreamlike" park, with the landscape receding behind him.  Little did we know then,  since we must have been blind, what an amazing actor AJ would grow to be.  He is completing his second year at CSULB, as (you guessed it) a theatre major!  He is an amazing, beautiful, talented young man.  I can only imagine how he will amaze us all in the future!  I am so proud to be his mommy.  Happy 20th AJ!

From the Beginning

As a child I grew up in a home full of creative and energetic siblings.  My older sisters were my first mentors in drawing and painting.  I was small in stature, not athletic, and I struggled with math, but I always knew I could draw better than any of my elementary school teachers!  Art was something I excelled at, and so I held onto it with a passion and eventually was accepted into Art Center College of Design where I decided that drawing and painting was something I was never going to live without.

I married a wonderful man and soon after we had two beautiful and creative children.  It was through my wish to stay home from work and care for them that I began my mural painting business.  For 19 years I was content painting the chosen subjects and moods of my various clients.  As time passed, I discovered that I longed to express my own ideas through my art; that mural painting no longer satisfied my desire to create.  

Through various workshops, my involvement with the Riverside Art Museum, PAAR, and classes at the Watts Atelier, I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring other aspects of painting, including studio work on canvas, painting "en plein air", and portraiture. I've discovered that development and growth in any one of these venues has a direct effect on the others.  I am always amazed at how, with every painting, educated art discussion, workshop, or class, there is always something to be learned or gained as an artist.  Exploring new possibilities, breaking rules, (discovering months later through my own clumsiness why those rules exist), reaching breakthroughs where some skill has suddenly become attainable to me, and striving to become the artist God intended me to be is a great source of enjoyment and fulfillment for me!