I paint landscapes to express my fascination with the personalities and gestures of trees and their environments. When I walk into a landscape that seems to reach out to include me, and I feel that spark of connection, I want to honor my emotional response by painting the place. I paint in order to observe and record some of the details, but I also add color and pattern of my own invention. Areas of pattern such as branches, leaves or grass are especially fun, as I can heighten colors and create directional shapes that lead the eye around the painting.

I work only from photographs I take myself; the first stage of composition happens in the viewfinder of the camera. After fine-tuning the composition by making value studies, I draw the larger shapes and transfer them to watercolor paper. I do a great deal of color mixing, and paint the underlying shapes using many shades of muted colors. After that I can lose myself in layering colors, shapes and patterns that dance across the paper.

I have worked as a graphic designer, calligrapher, and illustrator in Berkeley CA, Madison WI and Austin TX. When I moved to Portland OR with my husband and two sons in 1993 I became a full-time painter. I have a bachelor's degree in fine art from UW Madison, and three years of study at California College of Arts and Crafts. More recently I have taken workshops with Eric Wiegardt, Mark Mehaffey, Christopher Schink, and Cheng-Khee Chee. A member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon and North West Watercolor Society, I show my work in Oregon and Washington.