The Story behind my art

I always carried around a sketchbook. 

Above work from my teen years

Why? Well, at age 10 I got a little booklet by Leonardo Da Vinci with sketches of hands, birds, draped fabric, feathers, etc.. I learned that a real artist, apparently by observing everything closely, tried to capture objects, people and scenery in many ways and at times from different angles. One had to draw regularly, master shading, composition, colour and of course perspective! So, I drew everything that was around me as best as I could. I taught myself perspective at that age, because every art book I got from the library insisted on it. It also made sense. I wanted to draw what I saw realistically. If someone looking at my work would recognize it as "just like real life", then I figured I had been successful!

That same year, I began copying faces of movie stars that I found in magazines. Always by myself in the morning, making my breakfast and eating it with a 2B pencil nearby before going off to school. While chewing on my dry bread, I created black and white realistic faces with shading and all. Seeking to make the person most recognizable was my cue that I had real talent and.... maybe, yes, maybe...I would one day paint like the Italian masters.

During museum field trips in elementary school, I marvelled at the most realistic oil paintings of royals with mother-of-pearl necklaces, lace and shiny fabric. How to make it look that way? I thought... if I'd copy some masters like I copied faces from magazines, I would learn how to make my art look really good. 

My version of van Gogh's Boats done at age 17

Vincent van Gogh and Leonardo Da Vinci were on top of my list at age 11 to 17.  I kept drawing on and off and decided to start more serious drawing studies in 1986. Shortly after Georgia O'Keeffe's desert paintings unexpectedly transported me into a new world. I moved to Canada after my visit in New Mexico and thought I would continue to paint. But alas, the universe had a different plan! First I had to learn the language of colour as light itself!! Well, I didn't understand that back then. 

My last and biggest painting inspired by O'Keeffe's flowers and the expecting birth of my son took place in February 1995. Two large pink flowers. Alongside, I was practicing healing myself and others, but couldn't quite see what was really going on. 

I became a mother and my hands, instead of moving brushes, charcoal, pastels and pencils on paper, began to first change diapers, stir pots, and hang laundry in the wind. Instead of painting, I realized that I was weaving colours of light into the fabric of the universe, first rather invisible to me and than more and more clearly. I began to create with colours of light emanating from my hands. My canvas was the aura of my clients. I became a healer. Art as I knew it, rested in my past.

Then 2013 came...

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I felt a stirring. I pulled out some old drawings and paintings from the 80ties and organized and lined up my coloured pencils in pretty-coloured porcelain cups on the window sill that I had bought one sunny day at Value Village just for that purpose. I dared to add a tiny sketchbook, small enough to carry in my purse as I made a little sketch here and there, going about my day.

I set up more paints and papers, and then got canvas. Never painted on canvas before! Why did I buy canvas, I don't know. I always found it too soft and bouncy. I loved to paint on panels of wood. But, I did get the canvas. 


To be continued...