THE WHY 

Painting makes me happy. It’s me going down the rabbit hole to start my day and connect with the wonder that surrounds us. When my brushes touch canvas, I enter my own little universe and all my love for the natural world comes pouring out. 

Painting for me is like drinking sparkling fresh water and breathing, and I cannot fathom how I ever lived all those years without it.  

ABOUT MY WORK 

Welcome to my world. 

I love creating art that moves the soul. 

My work is drawn from my love of the natural world and are intimate portraits of animals I love or have encountered as a lifelong wildlife conservationist. I am insatiably curious, and deeply cerebral, and my day begins mulling over the paintings I am creating and how to improve on the work I completed the day before.  

My artwork is reflective of the detailed planning that goes into a painting prior to ever laying paint on the canvas. I covet the drawing stage and will spend hours and days researching the animal, figuring out the best way to capture their beauty depicting light, air, and form.

Once I have figured this out, I use a charcoal stick to draw my detailed sketch on the canvas, painting over in pure umber tones to create an underpainting that will become my map. All my paintings begin this way, and it only once I’m satisfied at this stage that I will begin to add colors. This I do very carefully, laying in thin layer after thin layer of subtle values and shades of colors.  

My style is realism, though once I’ve painted in the details, I will often paint over them - or even obliterate - certain specifics to create a mood and bring light to my subjects. 

Often it is the unseen in my paintings that makes the real impact. 

Because I didn't know any oil painters, or how to paint when I started a few years ago, I taught myself to use oils like watercolors, laying down oils in very, very thin layers of glazes. These I use to build up the depth in my paintings. Most of my paintings will contain several dozen layers. 

It doesn’t matter how long it takes me to paint something -  I will paint it until it feels right. Typically, I work on a painting for 2 to 3 months before I am happy with it.  By the time I am done, I will have spent many hundreds of hours with this animal painting their portrait, and honestly, they will have become my friends. 

To support conservation I donate proceeds from the sale of each of my originals and fine art prints.    

MY HISTORY 

When I was a child my family moved to Java, exposing me to a world full of wonder and creatures of unimaginable mystery and beauty. 

As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I studied forestry and conservation of natural resources, later pursuing graduate school in Wildland Resource Conservation studying orangutans and researching the deleterious effects the mining and forestry industries were having on their habitats. 

My life's path, though, was circuitous, taking me far away from the natural world and all that mattered to me. I entered the world of trade finance and world markets. It wasn't until some 40 years later when the pandemic hit that I gave myself permission to leave the business world, immersing myself back into the world of nature where my heart began to sing. 

I am a self taught artist, having learned everything in the last couple of years in my studio pouring over art books, observing other artists' works over the internet, taking online classes from artists I admire, and spending hundreds of hours on my own learning the fundamentals of drawing and oil painting. 

I am blown away by the incredible beauty in nature and how I can share this through my art.

ME TODAY 

My studio is located in my home near San Francisco where I live with my husband and our two rescued senior mutts, Blossom and Daisy Mae, who are my loyal studio assistants. With my morning coffee in hand, I’ll paint for 5-7 hours a day accompanied by the sounds of nature. I’m a huge fan of  bio-acoustics and seek out on the internet recordings of rain, winds, ocean surf waves crashing, rainforests, crickets, frogs, birds, humpback whales and orcas. 

I’m also a huge fan of documentaries and podcasts - especially following photographers and conservationists on their treks through the wilds.

In my mid seventies ( already...yikes!), it's taken me my whole life to finally get to be me and do what I've always wanted to do. Now, I get to share what moves me with the world, and it is, magic.