I was born and raised in Long Beach, Southern California. After a tryst with three years of undergraduate work to become an artist, and hundreds of hours life drawing models in preparation to go to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, the dance bug took hold of me and I dropped out to become an American Ballroom Dance Instructor. Marriage and divorce led me through Arizona then to be independent in Portland, OR., always still dancing. During the nine Portland years, I have credits as a prominent art model at every important art school in Portland including: Art Institute of Portland, OCAC, PNCA, and many community painting and drawing groups lasting over six years.
But before I was a model I ran drawing groups in Pasadena in the 90's out of my own large apartment living room, seeking more hours of figure study, always needing more. Being near Burbank, I had the fortune to sit next to animators from Disney who would drop by our humble sessions. It was amazing and distracting. I realized that life drawing wasn't my calling, or natural gift, but that I loved it. It taught me poses, before I began dancing. It taught me weight distribution, anatomy, gestures, moods, and the drama of the figure. I love being in a session and seeing each person's interpretation of the live pose. There is nothing like finished or unfinished work done from a live subject. Long may we have this tradition in our community, and I hope to bring much of it to the city in Las Vegas.
I learned composition, and that's something I'm using heavily as a photojournalist for my magazine and ebooks today. After sitting for painters, sculptures, sketch artists, animators from one minute to my longest: a 36 hour pose, I have so much respect for artists and having been the subject, I have even more respect for models. We need each other to make great figurative work, whether drawing, painting or photographing. After my six months as the Director of Dr. Sketchy in Portland OR. during 2010, I got in the habit of having photographers in the session as well as those who draw. I am a second year photographer and really enjoy trying.
I value the important things in a session like proper dramatic stage lighting and also the ability to see what you're doing in a well-lit work space that is inspiring. I will attempt to keep the models varied and interesting in our sessions which will range from Pinup to Character to Alt-Fetish Editions and from rated G to rated R, because all ages need to draw. The figure is in everything we see thousands of times a day from fine art to video games and film posters. No matter how you slice it, you can only learn to draw the figure or create characters well from drawing the form. This is what we'll be doing together out there. Whether you're doing full gestures or portraiture in your drawing or photography, you should have a good time with the upcoming subjects I've got in store for you.
I value the important things in a session like proper dramatic stage lighting and also the ability to see what you're doing in a well-lit work space that is inspiring. I will attempt to keep the models varied and interesting in our sessions which will range from Pinup to Character to Alt-Fetish Editions and from rated G to rated R, because all ages need to draw. The figure is in everything we see thousands of times a day from fine art to video games and film posters. No matter how you slice it, you can only learn to draw the figure or create characters well from drawing the form. This is what we'll be doing together out there. Whether you're doing full gestures or portraiture in your drawing or photography, you should have a good time with the upcoming subjects I've got in store for you.
Thank you for participating in our sessions.
