Fine Art by Linda Marie

Original Fine Art Paintings

 

I have always been the artist that doodles.  It all started in grade school when my teachers tossed my spelling workbooks on my desk and demanded to know why my margins were full of scribbles.  Mind you, I never really had difficulty spelling, but somehow the old school style of teaching didn’t allow for creative messiness.  My good mother always tried to find our special niche. I am the eldest of ten children, so perhaps I received special attention.   In an effort to curb my apparent proclivity to drawing in margins, and foment my budding artistic bents, my parents introduced me to the very talented Gloria Neff who had graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago.   Through her, I became familiar with basic color theory as well as drawing and painting techniques.  By the time I finished seventh grade, I had painted three oil paintings.

At eighteen, I had become independent and left home.  I painted for recreation.  I painted to the Moody Blues, Joni Mitchell, Don McLean and Joan Baez.   I was as happy as can be surrounded by turpentine and oily rags.   Still, the act of painting, as well as the results, was mostly just for me.   I was fortunate enough to be invited to visit South America.  I sold a couple of paintings, and bought a ticket to Colombia.   That was a two year trip that changed my life completely and it is a totally different story from which I am trying to convey. LIFE HAPPENS.

Thirty plus years later -
My “adult” artwork is a result of everything I have lived.  I have learned to appreciate the subtleties of life.  The tiniest detail intrigues me.  I love painting people most of all, but not for their faces, but for the emotion that is evoked.  Lately, I am trying to cut straight to the emotion and paint it, without the vehicle of the face.  I believe it is possible to derive emotion from a hand gesture, or body language

 I enjoy watercolor and oil – sort of like how one loves one’s children – for different reasons, but not one more than the other.   I feel as if I am always exploring and experimenting.  I don’t think that I would ever consider myself accomplished.  Being accomplished sounds as if there is no room for growth, doesn’t it?  I will say I have had lovely time learning and intend to continue growing.

So there you have it… I am an experimenting doodler who paints in watercolor and oil.  This is not to say that I don’t take my art seriously, because I can be quiet intense about it.  But let’s face it; Life is just too short and flimsy to stand on appearances.   I used to like to say that I was WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) – but those programmers of WYSIWYG software, know that there is a heap of coding going on beneath the surface.  Well, perhaps I can say my art is WYSIWYG after all.

Just a little postscript:  A special thanks to all my family. To those who shaped me to be the Linda I am today and to those I helped shape.