My interest in art began as a teenager in the 70’s. Even though I excelled in math, I opted to take as many art courses as possible during high school and studied art for two years in college. After graduating from Mercyhurst College with a BA in Accounting, I temporarily put my art interests aside when I pursued a career in finance and obtained a CPA license. For the past 25 years my focus has been on providing for my family and I enjoyed using my financial/analytical skills in business. However, I often longed for the time to make art a part of my life.
About ten years ago, when I moved to LaGrange GA, I decided to make the time
for art. A big motivation was my desire to develop skills to draw my pet,
an English Pointer named Jake. I took small steps and enrolled in various
art courses at the LaGrange Art Museum. I have taken several drawing,
color, and open studio classes from Cora Waterhouse which helped develop my
drawing skills. Cora taught me some basic concepts for drawing human
portraits which I transferred to dogs.
In the spring of 2010, I focused on drawing my dog Jake. I used photographs
as reference tools, while my dog is a “live” model. I have grown to love
to study the structure of my dog’s head and am working to try to capture his
personality.
Making a little time for Art has added some balance to my life. In the summer of 2010, I retired from a career in banking and am happy that there will be more time available to practice drawing pet portraits for relatives and friends.
