The Art of

I have always loved art and began drawing and sketching at a young age.  I took some art classes, but mainly architecture classes when I went to UC Berkeley.  I intended to double major in architecture and psychology but eventually only finished my B.A. in psychology.

 

I graduated from St. Mary’s College with a Masters in Counseling (College Student Services and Career Counseling) in 2011.  Most of my past jobs have been in the field of education where I was a substitute teacher, instructional aide, and tutor in East Bay School Districts and Contra Costa School Districts, as well as in after school programs and in-home tutoring.  Because I was so focused on my education and future career, art became just a hobby to me.  I have painted with acrylics, oil, and watercolors and gave away my art as gifts to friends and family members.

 

It was not until I entered a Juried Annual Contest in 2001 at Pro Arts in Oakland, and was selected as one of 40 contestants out of over 1,000, that I began to see that my art was indeed worthy of showing and that I was talented enough to become a professional artist.  However, again since I was so involved with my education I put art back on the back burner and only participated in Pro Arts Open Studios again in 2002, 2006, 2010, and until now.  Since taking some time off from school and re-assessing my goals and passions in life, I am again taking my art seriously and painting more.  As a student of psychology and a self-taught artist, I hope to bring my two passions together as a future school psychologist incorporating art therapy and other expressive arts into my way of interacting and understanding each individual student’s needs..

 

I am particularly fond of oil pastels as it a medium where I can easily blend color and use broad or swift strokes to capture emotion and action.  I also like acrylic paint and my recent work has been focused on portraitures of famous celebrities and of cats.  Though most of them are realistic, some of my work takes on imaginative qualities, abstract in both nature and expression.  Aside from art and psychology, I am also a poet and musician/songwriter.  In the future I want to incorporate some of my lyrics or poetic lines within my paintings.