Drawing has always come as naturally to me as breathing; indeed, in my childhood I would cover surfaces appropriate and inappropriate with drawings of animals, human figures and faces. Also beginning in childhood was a growing fascination with the illustrations that accompanied the usual youthful literary fare. In time, my primary artistic focus became centered on the interpretation of imaginative fiction, which eventually led to the publication of work in two HarperCollins JRR Tolkien tribute books, Tolkien’s World and Realms of Tolkien (1992 and 1996 respectively), several derivative works including the covers for Tolkien’s Dragons and Monsters (HC, 1993), the Dutch edition of Letters of Tolkien published by Het Spectrum (2001); and the 1998 Tolkien Calendar published by HarperCollins. In 2012 two of my pieces, A Pleasant Awakening and A Conspiracy Unmasked were purchased for the permanent collection by the Greisinger Tolkien Museum in Jenins, Switzerland.

 

In the early and mid 2000’s I illustrated a number of covers for Bethlehem Books’ library of young adult fiction reprints, including the Texas Panhandle series by Loula Grace Erdman.

All of my work from the 80’s 90’s and early 2000’s constitutes my “mostly self-taught” phase. For a child of the mid-twentieth century, good art instruction in college was not so easily obtained. By century’s end, however, that situation was changing, and I re-entered school as an adult, finally completing the BFA degree in Illustration from NH Institute of Art in 2009. Additionally, I am a happy alumna of the 2016 Illustration Master Class, a most valuable experience.

Following graduation, I took a short hiatus from illustration and began to pursue projects in landscape painting  – as a decades long denizen of the White Mountains region of New Hampshire this was inevitable – and portraiture. And while narrative illustration remains my first love, I have in the last several years gotten seriously sidetracked in projects depicting the more closely observed beauties of light, color and contour to be found in our natural environs. Thus were born the Tree Portraits!

I am available for commissions.