An Introduction of Sorts

I come from an artistic family and had believed all of my life that the talent had skipped over me. I always had an appreciation of art and could see the world with the eye of an artist thanks to my grandmother, but could never actually create any of my own. I dabbled in many crafts and enjoyed them, but never was able to do what I really wanted to do, draw and paint.

I learned to groom dogs in the 70's and was able to express my artistic side with clippers and scissors and became quite good at what some have called canine topiary. In 1998 two years after the death of my husband I moved to Southeastern Tennessee and began a new life. The incredible beauty of this place had a profound effect on me and still does. The desire to paint and draw began to almost haunt me.

I decided to try a Donna Dewberry One Stroke Painting kit, and wow! I could actually paint. Those early paintings weren't great but they were a start. In time I started painting animals on the beautiful smooth Tennessee river rocks and some of these were pretty good.

I had done quite a bit of photo manipulation and graphic design on the computer and had used an early Wacom tablet which I had come to rely on. In 2008 I had to get a new computer and the old Wacom would no longer work with it, I really missed it and my partner got tired of my talking about getting a new one.
He got me a Bamboo Fun tablet for Christmas that year and included with it was Corel Painter Essentials 4. the day I installed that it was all over but the shouting.

I played with PE4 and the Bamboo tablet and found the Essentials Cafe on the net, there I met people who directed me to the Painter Talk forum. Once there I found out about the DAA classes and decided it was time for me to take a class and really learn something about painting since I had not even had any art classes in school.

This eventually led to Painter 11, a Wacom Intuous 4 tablet and classes with Skip Allen and Karen Bonaker.
I also met Tim Shelbourne there and last fall began taking his drawing classes. This has opened up a whole new world for me and I have to thank these people for helping me achieve my dream of being able to draw and paint.

In time I'll get this blog thing figured out and post some of my art work, but for now this will serve as a beginning. :)

Claudia