LET'S FACE IT 2023 - ARTISTS/INSTRUCTORS

Angela Kennedy

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I am an artist based in Southern Oregon. I love all art mediums but I use watercolors and mixed media the most. I love sharing my process and helping others to enjoy creating art.

Brett Borgard

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Hi, I'm Brett. I've been creating charcoal, graphite and oil works intensively since 2017 when I did my first oil painting. With a dedicated focus on foundational techniques and skill building to get me creating faster and more efficiently I'm excited to share some of the lessons I've learned along the way.

Cyndy Ross

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Cyndy Ross is a multi-faceted artist and native Oregonian. After 2 ½ years working on a degree in graphic design, she left university and spent the next 30 years dipping her toes into everything artsy and craftsy while raising four children in the woods of the Pacific Northwest amongst a menagerie of animals. Her greatest passion now is mixed media portraits. She is fascinated by faces and the expressions they make, by the souls inside those faces. They tell stories without words. One of her favorite parts of finishing a painting is coming up with a title. When she’s not painting, you can find her walking in the woods, knitting dishcloths, gardening, and reading. For her last meal on Earth she would choose vegetable pizza and blueberry pie.

Dylan Sara

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I am an Australian born illustrator, artist and father based in Göttingen Germany.

I love working with ink and connecting with people from around the world. I host two weekly online sketch sessions where we hang out chat and draw each other. It's great fun and practice. Get in touch if you'd like to join.

An important aspect of my work and life is being in nature. Making ink from foraged natural materials and creating work inspired by people and places is my passion and I look forward to sharing this passion with you.

Emma Petitt

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I paint curvy, fun and larger than life women. I love to distort and exaggerate the figure, especially the hands and feet. I use layers of colour and texture to build up interest and depth within the underpainting. I abstract the figure but still retaining an element of realism. And I paint large! i fill the substrate right up to the edges, often having the figure actually interact with the edges.

Holly Beals

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I’m convinced that everyone needs a little lively color and uplifting in their day to day. If I can get happily lost in the creative process and spread some joy around in the meantime...success!

After graduating from Chico State with a BA in communications, I worked as a graphic designer for six years. But new adventures were calling and I was blessed with the opportunity to teach conversational English to college students in Tibet. It was there, one day in my tiny apartment, where I gathered up what I had on hand: scrap paper, Mod Podge and acrylic paint. I was trying to make it through an emotionally challenging season and what emerged on canvas from that struggle was beautiful and satisfying. So began my love for mixed media painting.

Now, in the midst of yet another great adventure, being a mother to two young boys, I continue my love for mixed media painting and cherish time in the art studio. I mainly work with acrylics and handmade or scrap paper on wood panel. Texture, layering, unexpected color combinations and capturing the human form are all reoccurring curiosities.

Some things I’ll never stop believing: life has meaning, each person is significant, and The One who made all things is beautiful beyond comprehension. What a privilege it is to share my creative expressions with YOU.

-Holly

Jenny Manno

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Because I grew up in a creative home, it was an easy transition to go from student to teacher. My artistic life experiences became part of my identity, eventually evolving into a career. I often joke about having an Art Rolodex in my head. When someone asks a question or throws me a challenge… I quickly flip through the rolodex and voila… there is the answer! I love problem solving and a good brainstorming session. I think it is because it feels like a community effort working towards the same goal.

Throughout life I have been given many opportunities to teach others what I know. It makes total sense that I am now an Art teacher professionally. Even as a little girl it what obvious to my fellow students. Maybe it's because I'm the Cancer sign which has a propensity to nurture and lead? All I know is that I wouldn't trade it for the world. I thrive off of being able to encourage others and help them develop their own creative passions. I want to not only share my heart, but also my lifetime's worth of experience with others who are searching. For me it’s all about the human connections and being witness to someone else's artistic journey.

Juna Biagioni

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My name is Juna Biagioni, I’m an artist and online art teacher offering online classes to people from all over the world – both beginners and more experienced artists.

Art is my biggest passion! Making art is such a wonderful way to express myself and to connect with others.

I create abstract work but also love making portraits, working with all kinds of materials and supplies, such as acrylic paint, charcoal, pastel, collage, and more. I’m fascinated by the use of light and shadow, and working with texture.

I love to convey emotions and stories through faces, trying to capture some kind of ‘soul’ in my work – in an unpolished way. Soul can be soft, tender, and beautiful, but also difficult or raw. All these aspects are welcome in my work and interesting to explore.

My main goal as an art teacher is to help people discover their own creativity and become more confident in making art. It’s such a beautiful process to see participants in my classes trying out new techniques, learning new skills – maybe a bit hesitant or scared in the beginning, but then becoming more and more confident in their own abilities, leaving their inner critic to the side, and discovering their unique artistic voice. I feel privileged to be part of that process!

Kara Bullock

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I'm a people watcher, a dream chaser, and a go getter!  Not long ago I was watching my first online art video and thought to myself, I CAN DO THAT!

Today, I run an online art school that offers classes to inspire your art and business.  I always thought that it was art that I loved, but I recently realized that people are my true passion, and art has been my vehicle for making connections with others all over the world!

I am happy you are here, and look forward to connecting with you and supporting your creative journey!

Kate Higgins

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I’m a British-Australian Artist working across drawing mediums, with a specific focus on drawing portraits and figures in graphite, coloured pencil and Procreate.

Drawing offers something immediate and visceral as exposed to the viewer. I appreciate drawing as my primary form of communication due to its inherent rawness, simplicity and accessibility. The principle that incredible insight and emotion may be invoked through the eloquent use of a single pencil, fundamentally inspires my practice.

In my work, I’m passionate about colour, character, details that make people unique and capturing subjects without contrivance. Whilst my style is strongly influenced by traditional drawing techniques (rules of observation, light and shade, perspective), I’m also heavily inspired by aesthetic qualities which may be described as quintessentially ‘illustrative’. In this sense, my work adopts an almost ‘storybook quality’; it aims to package a complex and bold emotional story that is continued off the page.

I’ve been fortunate to win a number of drawing awards and commendations for my portraiture work in the Australia-Eastern. The fulfilment that I get from incorporating art into my everyday life is matched by the joy of interacting with others in the drawing community; in both sharing my skills to help other artists grow and being inspired by them in turn.

Kate Thompson

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I was a Textile Print Designer for the Apparel Business for 20 years. I received a BFA in Textile Design at Calif. State Univ., Long Beach. I started painting and becoming a full time self supporting artist 12 years ago through my teaching/exhibiting and selling my work. I have focused on the portrait from the start. I practice several disciplines using experimental mixed media techniques and materials. The portrait is one that I come back to again and again.

Laurie Johnson

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At the age of 12, my father introduced me to the wonderful world of drawing and painting by sending me to the Ogelbay Art Institute in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was there that I became addicted to that wonderful smell of oil paints, wet watercolor paper and turpentine. In the past 50 years I’ve taken over 30 workshops at the Scottsdale Artist school studying with such notable artists as Daniel Gerhartz, Peggy Kroll Roberts, Daniel Keys and Sherrie McGraw. Recently I've been involved in a mentoring program with Albin Veselka and continue to develop my skills as an artist. I pay all my knowledge about art forward by teaching at the Art Bias Center in Northern California.

Mika Denny

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Mika Denny was born and raised in Orange County, California. As a Laguna Beach Festival of Arts scholarship recipient she attended Cal State Fullerton and studied fine art, photography, design and illustration. After college, Mika had a successful design career working for an award-winning in-house art department for a publishing company in Laguna Beach. She started out as a graphic designer and worked her way up to the creative director position. Eventually she launched her own boutique design agency Mikaworks Design. She considers herself a creative explorer and loves creating visual imagery in a variety of ways.

Currently, Mika is pursuing fine art projects that utilize her drawing skills. Her true love is drawing people. Her portrait work has been shown at the Irvine Fine Arts Center, Chemer's Gallery in Tustin and the City Hall in Laguna Beach. She has also been selected for juried online exhibitions including; The O'Hanlon Center for the Arts "Woman Artists Making Their Mark" and Southern California Open Regional Exhibitions "Chiaroscuro". In 2022, her work was selected as the City Hall Choice Award for her portrait drawing, "Things Left Unseen".

Misty Segura-Bowers

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Hi, I’m Misty, a fine artist and portrait painter. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, California with my husband, daughter and fur child.

I’ve been a working artist for the last 20 years, spending the first half of my career as a visual effects artist working on Hollywood blockbusters. I’m grateful to my film career for an education in creating realism and evoking a mood or story through art. My paintings are a blend of realism and abstraction, using oil or watercolor, exploring themes like equality and transcendence of separateness.

One thing that inspires me is when a painting has an emotive quality to it. As a painter, it is fulfilling when you can express emotion in your work, and a beautiful gift when the viewer feels it. That’s why I decided to teach my first online class on creating Emotive Portraits. I hope it speaks to you. Wishing you all a gorgeous joyful creative journey!

Nadyia Duff

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Nadyia Duff is a Jamaican/American Artist, Art Educator, and Museum Educator.

Nadyia Duff creates elaborate narratives using her method of drawing and painting. She combines the painterly and realistic. Every layer is a unique and uncalculated build up of mediums and color. The juxtaposition of roughly drawn background imagery and the detailed subject imagery creates vast visual narratives.

Pamela Blaies

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Pamela Blaies works with oils to create representational art. She paints "alla prima" style, finishing each piece while the paint is still wet. She discovered her passion for painting soon after starting a family. Her small children were sad about the decision to move to a new home, so to lift their spirits she began to create murals on their bedroom walls. She found herself anticipating each morning filled with painting. Compelled to explore this newly discovered part of herself, she began to experiment with painting on canvas. These first steps were the beginning of a lifelong commitment to the pursuit of painting.

She has had the opportunity to study with talented and accomplished artists and has also discovered that self-study and experimentation work well for her as she continuously strives to grow as an artist. Pamela is a member of Oil Painters of America, American Impressionists Society and American Women Artists. Her art has been selected to show in many of the top national and regional exhibits throughout the country and has been honored with multiple awards. Through dedication, study and hard work, she pursues her art with enthusiasm. While nurturing her passion for painting, she has learned to feel, see and connect on a deeper level.

Pamela was raised in Texas and graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Business Administration. She skipped the graduation ceremony to catch the first flight to Europe and then continued to enjoy a fashion modeling career for over a decade. She is now studying to become fluent in Spanish and French and still loves to travel, but home is where her heart is - Texas. She has been married for 25 years, has 3 children and lives in Colleyville, Texas.

Rachel Favelle

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Rachel Favelle is an Australian Pop Surreal artist and illustrator, living and working from her coastal studio in the Gold Coast. Growing up in country Australia; surrounded by rugged mountain ranges, dusty roads and watering holes, Favelle spent most of her childhood exploring and making meaning of her environment. She quickly became fascinated by the potential for Art to express those intangible experiences and narratives that unfolded in her mind as a child.

‘While many of my previous bodies of work focussed on fairy tales and mythology, it is always the narratives and wonder of my own childhood that keep calling me back. I grew up in a small country town near the Warrumbungle National Park. Sitting around campfires, riding down dirt roads and climbing trees to pick mulberries in my back yard opened my eyes to the beauty in nature. It was an invitation to create my own imaginary worlds in these solitary places and drawing was a perfect way to express this.’

Favelle’s creatures reflect a strong connection to their environment and the history of a land that has been forever changed by colonisation. Delicate fabrics such as lace, juxtaposed against Australian flora and fauna, have become a metaphor for the fragility of the Australian environment. Favelle’s English heritage brings with it a responsibility to not only understand the delicate tapestry of this land but reveal the human impact brought about by the choices of her ancestors.

Rebecca Fisk

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Rebecca S. Fisk was born in Calgary Alberta in 1969, but grew up in the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Her large-scale self portraits focus primarily on identity politics and her experiences growing up in a predominantly white rural community and the effects of systemic racism in the Black diaspora. She uses self portraits to tell her stories.
Rebecca earned her BFA from NSCAD in 1992 and her MFA from University of Saskatchewan in 1997. Her work has been exhibited in galleries such as the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Dalhousie University Art Gallery.

Rebecca currently teaches high school art in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia.

Rose Cameron

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Rose Cameron is an artist currently living in the PNW. Born into a family steeped in artistry and creativity, she spent her childhood drawing, painting, weaving, making clay figures, and indulging in a world where art inspired nearly every corner of her existence. She took a decades long unintentional break and returned to her passion with a resurgence of creativity. Focusing on oil paintings (portraits, figures, abstract landscapes) and charcoal (portraits), Rose strives to capture feelings that are reminiscent of dreams, something both familiar and strange. Collectors and viewers alike often are drawn to one particular piece, and the discovery of who is drawn to which and why is a delightful foray into self-exploration.

Rosso Crimson Emerald

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In her portraiture, Rosso Emerald Crimson renders female subjects who emerge through a haze of pastels and muted tones.

The artist often depicts the women and girls staring forward with unsmiling expressions and are reimagined within timeless landscapes.

Technically, while the portrayal of the figures is achieved by a meticulous rendering using traditional oil painting techniques, the deconstruction (and reconstruction) of the surrounding derives from the juxtaposition of different media, including spray paint, vigorous scraping and scratching of the surface and application of metal leaf and gilding. The creative process is deliberately chaotic in the making yet geared towards the achievement of a sense of harmony and a visually engaging imagery.

Robert Kelley

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I am Rob Kelley and I am a fine artist/illustrator with a focus on portraiture! I live in Stockton, California, and am a single dad to three children. I studied graphic design at UC Davis and then went on to study illustration at Academy of Art in San Francisco. Although I have had an extensive education in art, I abandoned art for most of my adult life.   That changed, 4 years ago, when my life hit a dramatic shift. At this time, I began looking at why I was in a constant state of low-level unhappiness and discovered that I had abandoned my true and authentic self. I knew that the one thing I needed that had been missing was art! Since then, I have adopted a sink or swim mentality!

Sabra Awlad Issa

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I’m Sabra, a self-taught portrait artist from the Netherlands. I was always interested in drawing but never chose to dedicate myself. Instead I built a business in application design and development. As most of us do, I tried very hard to balance my need for art and music with work, deadlines and clients. The result was that I failed at both; my work was draining my energy, leaving me too tired to recharge with art at night.

A few years ago my son asked me, “should I do things that make me unhappy?”. As my brain was trying to come up with an answer suitable for a 7-year-old, every other fiber in my body screamed “NO!”. No, you shouldn’t kiddo. That question touched me so deeply at the time and I realized that instead of answering it, I needed to start living my answer. A few months later I quit everything and started painting every day. I’ve never been more driven, content and scared all at the same time.

I paint humans. Often I wonder if maybe I should try painting something else. Or add some object or symbol. But then I end up painting another face. It took a while but I’ve accepted that that is what I do. If I had to paint the same face every day for the rest of my life, I’d still be happy. Kara Bullock’s Let’s Face It was my first experience with online teaching and I’ll be forever grateful for that. Being in this art community is one of the best things that has come into my life and I’m so happy to be a part of it again this year.

Simone Scholes

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Simone Scholes began her career at Art College but was very quickly pulled onto a different track in the corporate world of the fashion industry. In a serendipitous turn, her corporate career brought her on a journey to Vietnam many years later, where she quite unexpectedly fell in love with a painting hanging in a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh city. Unable to forget this painting, Simone immediately picked up her paintbrush upon her return home and hasn’t stopped painting since.

Heavily influenced by natural materials, Simone often starts with a wooden board instead of a traditional canvas. Using bold brush strokes, she plays with familiar shapes and light to create different personas. Her fashion and music inspired artwork captures both the outward beauty and the inner mysteries of human beings.

Toni Burt

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Toni is a mixed-media artist and potter.

Creativity and the challenge of discovering something new is what inspires her. She is constantly developing new techniques and processes to expand her creative self. Exploring with line and form, and the challenge of working with materials in different ways is key to her constantly evolving creative style.

She has a loose organic approach and loves to explore the freedom of scribbling with a pencil or blobbing paint with a big brush. Evoking emotions with art is her ultimate goal, and to align with spirit during the process. She is inspired by many things – a lump of clay from the earth, the magical wonder of the natural world, faces and figures, quaint urban streets scenes, and ordinary everyday objects.

Zane Prater

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Zane Prater is a visual artist originally from Denver, Colorado. Having trained as a classical figurative painter at the Barcelona Academy of Art he works primarily with drawing and painting while also creating land-based installations and large-scale public murals.

His work weaves together botanical illustration, visionary art, portraiture and design in order to speak to the nature of our relationship with the richly layered tapestry of the natural world. His imagery engages with the mythopoetic narratives that we hold regarding our individual and collective roles in the landscapes that we inhabit, seeking to draw connections and find harmonies between the urban and the organic.

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