While I’ve been an artist most of my life, I’ve been painting animals since 2000. My first portrait was of my first rescue Border Collie, Shadow (above and here). He had been abused and neglected and was learning to trust again. He wore his heart on his sleeve but the questions still remained in his eyes. Painting him as a blue dog just seemed to fit. Soon after finishing his portrait and sending it to friends and family, I received an email from a friend of a friend asking me to paint his Border Collie. I didn’t have a website back then so my work spread by word of mouth, and spread it did!

In 2001 I was going through some old family photos and found a photograph of my brother Michael (above and here) when he was about 4 years old. I decided to give it a try and was delighted with the results! I continued to paint, mostly animals though, as that was what I was getting commissions for. Within about a year and a half I had a six month waiting list, all animal portraits.

In the spring of 2002 I spent a bit more time with some portraits of people. I used my Grandpa Hall as a subject and later my Mom dozing in the sun at the beach and realized that I really liked painting people!

In the fall of 2003, Brad, Shadow, Onya, and I moved from Apex, NC to northern Colorado. I continued to paint and experiment with new mediums. I tried mixing mediums using colored India ink with colored pencil on top. It really gave the painting an illustrative quality that I liked and lent itself to action portraits. I painted both Riley and Sidney in this way and while the look is not as soft as colored pencil, it really appeals to me.

From January 2006 to the spring of 2007 I took a bit of time working in the family business but soon realized how much I missed painting full time. During that time Brad and I decided to adopt, first from Ethiopia and then from China.  We’re home from Ethiopia now, with our baby boy Michael, named after my brother. My life has settled down into a rhythm and I have time to paint again-yay!

Contact me when you’re ready to have your a portrait of your family, child/ren, pet, painted!

Julia