This is “Called to Serve” Elder Staples. This is one of my favorite missionary portraits. The reference photos for this were taken in Zion Nation Park. Beautiful location, great looking guy, and some good shots made this a treat to paint. I sent this painting, framed and all, to the parents of the client who commissioned it. I have never heard what they thought of it. Sigh…

This was my first painting in the “Called to Serve” series. This is my nephew Jonathon Welch. I am honored to paint these missionaries. They willingly spend two years of their lives preaching the gospel and serving others at their own expense.

I painted this from a photo that I took before Jonathon left on his mission. I only had a handful to choose from. Now I take many, many more photos and I know what lighting I like best and how to get them to loosen up more. I painted this one summer on my parents back porch. The lighting was terrible and it was sooooo hot. Why am I always painting at my parents?

I wish I had a better photograph of this painting. This is Joel. He was so fun to take pictures of. If you look closely you can see that he didn’t have his shoes tied. He didn’t have socks on either but I didn’t paint it that way. One of my favorite things about this painting was his teeth. He had beautiful white teeth, teeth with character, not the Hollywood chicklet teeth. Apparently Joel was less enamored with his teeth because he has since had them straightened.

This is Christopher. I took the reference photos for this painting on the grounds of the Las Vegas Temple. When Christopher saw this painting for the first time he said “you did my sleepy eye.” I debated if I should change it and I had on the drawing but as I painted this image I thought that he was perfect just the way he was.

I did this painting while Coulter napped the summer he turned two. He would sleep for a good three hours every day at the same time of day so I decided to paint this barrel of flowers. I was nearly finished with it when a butterfly lit for just a moment on one of the blooms.
I then decided that I needed to have a few butterflies in this painting. I spent hours trying to catch butterflies. When I finally did catch one I pinned it to a potato wedge and placed it in the flowers where I wanted it. I then changed the butterfly’s position and moved it to a new location. I got the Monarch butterfly off of the grill of my car.

I did this painting from a photograph that I had taken when a few families, ours included went camping on the Boulder River in Montana. I sold it to the little girl’s mom and it has special meaning for them.

My brother Scotty asked me to paint this picture for him. It is after a painting that was in the Ensign magazine. The painting was called Engidi Falls. I painted this in my mother's front room while we were visiting one summer. It is hanging in my brother's house on his rock fireplace in this copper colored frame and it looks very nice.

"Devils Canyon" if you have ever walked in from the top you will recognize this view. However I omitted the bridge. This is one of the most beautiful places and also one of the best streams to fish. I grew up going to this canyon but never went down and in from the mountain until I was married.

I took rolls and rolls of film and fished with my new Ultra Light fishing pole that my husband had given me as a wedding present. The fishing rod did not survive the trip but the film did. I loved painting this. It was easy to imagine the Big Horn Sheep navigating the cliff ledges. This painting hangs in Dr. Scott P. Welch’s operatory. He also has an old painting I did in college haging in his office. I will get a picture of that next time I'm there.

I painted this one summer while visiting my parents. I would walk a block and a half south of my parents and set up my easel in the mornings and work until the light changed too much. The lady who tended this incredible garden would come out and visit and tell me what she was planting and changing. It took me three or four days to finish this. When I was home this summer it made me sad every time I went by this house. There isn’t a single flower there anymore. “Perennials” 20X30, oil on canvas, hangs in a private collection.

This is a commissioned piece that I did for a family in Montana. They wanted their children, Arabian, dog, cat and barn in the painting. This was quite a task. I took several rolls of film and started cutting. Back then I would literally cut up the pictures and make a collage of sorts to base my drawing on. The mother of these children is a great song writer.

I come from a family of seven. We have always drawn names for Christmas. I painted this painting for my brother one year that I had his name and we didn’t have any money. There were several really neat drawings that came out of this as well. Barry and Lori actually bought one of them and had it framed as well.

Harold Hopkinson gave me some suggestions and much encouragement when I took this painting to his studio. He was a great artist and always so willing to share what he could with others. I grew up wanting to be an artist like him. He was a great man.

Dr. Welch and his wife (I like to name drop when at all possible) have since commissioned other pieces and have bought some of my landscapes. I will be painting a “Called to Serve” portrait of their oldest son who is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the next year or so.

This piece was commissioned by Dr. Chris Winterholler and his wife Dr. Patrice Winterholler. They flew me to Saint George to meet them in Zion National Park where they were having a family reunion. I took my daughter Starlee who wasn’t even one yet with me. She cried most of the time but they were very patient and helpful. I was tickled with how this turned out. Unfortunately I only have one photo of this painting and the colors are not quite right.

I now take several photos of my finished pieces. There are many of my paintings out there that I don’t have record of. I went to this ladies house one time to with my niece and saw a piece that looked like my stuff. I went and checked the signature and it was one of mine. I hadn’t even remembered doing it.

This was a painting commissioned by a couple in Oregon. Actually the mom wanted it done so bad that she cleaned my house every week until it was paid off. It was a challenge working with children so young but the older sister was very good about following my instructions and just staying close to her little brother.

When we had the final viewing the mom said… “it looks like there is bird poop on the top of his head”. Needless to say I fixed that. Here again I only have this photo and the colors are washed out.

This is a commissioned piece where we went to this fabulous garden to take the reference photos. There were butterflies everywhere. The middle boy is trying to catch them in the painting. There are over 10 butterflies in this piece. When this painting was delivered to the family the youngest son said “where did you get the color for my hair?”

This is a painting I did several years ago of my little girl Kaylee. She and her older brother, Coulter were outside running in the gutters after it had rained. They both had umbrellas even though the rain had stopped.

I love the reflected light on her little jaw.

Kaylee had these great little sterling silver bracelets that she wore all the time when she was younger. She is now 10 and never wears bracelets.

This is the painting "Rainy Day".

This is a photo of a commissioned piece. I took several pictures of this little girl and did two different sketches for the family to choose from for the final painting. They decided to have me paint both compositions.

I took this photo before this painting was finished and neglected to take one of the final. She ended up having flowers on her shirt and there were other changes as well. They were both framed with great frames from Many's.

Starlee

This is a painting that I did for fun of my youngest daughter Starlee. I had just finished a commission and had decided to do one for me. To loosen up a bit and have fun again. I had "In the Studio with Dan Gerhartz" going in the background when I started this. I told everyone that I had been painting with my buddy Dan. No one got it but me. I was also pouring over Susan Lyon's new book "Visions and Voyages" at this time and tried some new things. I loosened up a lot and really put the paint on. Scott Burdick's work was rolling in a slide show at this time as well. I guess I'm starved to be working with other artists. I learned a lot in this painting and it is now one of my favorites.

The morning after I started this painting I found my youngest daughter, Starlee, sitting on a little step stool in front of it and she said "I just love this painting." Too cute. I need to take a picture of her admiring her.

The process of a painting

This is the first day of painting. It took quite a while to get to this point. First I took pictures, lots and lots of pictures. Then I edited them in Photoshop to come up with a few good compositions. From there I actually did two sketches for my clients to choose from. One was vertical and the other horizontal. They obviously chose the horizontal and wanted to change Kurk's head position. I like to have all the problems in positioning and likenesses hashed out before I go to paint. This is one of my favorite parts of the painting. I do a color wash and then wipe out, with a rag and thinner, the lightest areas and make sure I have the positioning of everyone down. I have a finished size, black and white printout of my image as well as the reference sketches hanging right beside my easel while I work.

I've started to really paint now. I just begin with the center most person and work out from there. I like to paint wet on wet so I try to resolve an area before moving on. This painting was several weeks in process. I am a busy mother of three too.

There was so much skin going on here that I spent a whole day on the legs. I also used my digital camera as a refining tool in this painting. I always look at the piece with a mirror and flip it but I discovered that my camera can isolate drawing issues as well.

It's interesting to see how many changes there are from my first block in.

I'm moving left! I always seem to do this.

I spent several days at this stage just waiting for Drake to come out.

This was fun! I loved painting that dog. He just emerged out of the back ground along with Val's hair.

I didn't change much on the left side of the painting after this point. The clients wanted the mom's nose changed and few other things but this side was pretty much resolved for me at this point.

I decided to have Scotty smile a little more because he is a happy guy and I had a good reference shot that merged seamlessly with what I had already done. Three wasted days and rubbed off paint later I went back to my original plan.

Here he comes.... I actually had to take the painting and all my supplies and an collapsible easel to Wyoming where the painting would hang once it was finished. From this point on I painted in my Mothers front room on a drop cloth. Thanks for putting up with that mess Mom. You're great.

The family saw the painting at this stage and the mom cried. That's a good thing...

I signed the painting at this point. I thought it was done. We had the final viewing and I got out some scratch paper to write down the little changes that the clients wanted made. They sat and watched while I made the changes.

Here we have the final painting. Of course I framed it with a beautiful frame from Many's of Denver.