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Artist Comments

I must admit that setting up a web page has been harder for me than teaching myself how to paint oil portraits.  My husband and I try to avoid modern technology (we still have a house phone and no cell except a tracfone for travel) but sometimes we get to the place where we have to give in to necessity. So here we are, beginning our attempt to reach many who have asked for more connection to me and my artistic expression.

I do not want to bore you with a long rhetoric about my art journey so instead I think I will give you a few basics and then fill you in by answering your questions over time.

You can read my bio and resume to get the straight information and then follow my blog to learn more.  At this time I will introduce myself with a little info and hopefully you will enjoy this site and return often.

The first important thing you should know is that I love this process of being inspired by an image and then being motivated beyond explanation to get it down on canvas so that it exists in the world for others to experience.  I’m driven but it is a happy obsession.  For most of my life I only absorbed the beauty or the message of an image as an individual, putting it down as a sketch on paper only when my busy schedule allowed.  My main focus was a desire to learn more, never even realizing that this knowledge and understanding of light and composition, etc. would someday be accessible like study info which I hardly knew I was accumulating.

While raising our daughters I’d painted only a couple of really terrible canvases which my family now lovingly refers to as my ‘primitive’ work.  I just didn’t have enough time and I had my fingers in too many other ‘pies.’  Circumstances changed though and around the year 2000 I began to paint again, recognizing a little jump forward in what I had previously considered mediocre work, at best.  I began frequenting a gallery nearby and of course all the artists there expressed delight with my work.  I am old enough, or should I say, mature enough to take their comments with a grain of salt.  These loving people meant well, but I was not egotistic about their kind comments.  Here is how I saw it.  When a viewer watches AMERICAN IDOL while all the early contestants are being eliminated, those contestants all THINK they can sing.  I put myself in that same category, that is; perhaps I just THINK I can paint. Therefore, it was unlikely that I would ever pass this stage in my development.  I am grateful to the Almighty because during this developmental time, I happened to meet the woman who proceeded to erase those kinds of thoughts from my artistic process.  Artist and teacher, Jackie Dixon sat me down and convinced me that I AM AN ARTIST.  She truly believed in my potential to improve and she helped me to be as confident about it as she was.  I am doing what I do today because of her tenacity and also because of the encouragement I received from my husband.

So for now, I hope I have given you a little insight into my history as a portrait artist.  I am looking forward to posting new work as I slowly develop it.  Till then, Shalom.  Diana