Lynda has painted oil and pastel portraits from life since she was a teenager. Her lifelong passion for portraiture led her to Penn State University, Mercyhurst College, Cleveland Institute of Art and the University of Arizona. Upon completion of her Masters in art and history, Lynda worked as an environmental arts teacher outside of New York City and then left to explore Europe and the Far East for a period of years. This included a year of teaching portraiture at the University of Roskilde, Denmark Lynda now lives in North Western PA, surrounded by the lush game lands of the Allegheny National Forest and state forests. St. Mary's is located in Elk County which is famous for its elk herd. Amid this "land of plenty" Lynda pursues the art of portraiture and painting the local landscape on location. Her studio serves as a workshop for classes in portraiture and landscape painting. The latter is done on location, weather permitting. Class sizes are kept small to better focus on learning.
After finishing The High Academy of Arts in Utrecht the Dutch Artist Herman Tjepkema specializes in portraiture; he develops a technique by witch he builds up his portraits in thin layers of colour and then he softens the contours to obtain a beautiful atmosphere; the large size and pronounced close ups gives his portraits its dramatic power. Besides his portraits of children and adults he also paints music- and movie stars With his portraiture Herman Tjepkema won many prizes and this year he is invited by the Internal Committee of the International Biennial of Contemporary Art to participate in the sixth edition of the exhibition in Florence, Italy.
I've
been drawing as long as I can remember and always took an interest in art at
school. I began to sell my pictures when I was about 16. I painted with
fluorescent poster paint and created portraits of rock and pop stars for a local
disco DJ (this was around 1970/71). I discovered oils around the same time and
since then it has always been my preferred medium. My maternal grandfather
was artistic in his own way and supplemented his pension by painting
posters advertising the up and coming "turns" at the local working men's club.
The exhibition that has probably influenced me
the most however, was by a school that called themselves Spanish
Super-Realists (you must remember that this was thirty years ago so the
name may not be accurate but that's as close as I can remember). Their work was
not just photographic but almost three dimensional in appearance; I remember
looking at one of the paintings from the side to reassure myself that I was
looking at a flat surface. Since then I have always attempted to reach the same
level of detail in order to make whatever I produce to have that three
dimensional quality. This is a technique that can't be applied to live
sittings; so under those circumstances I usually revert to my
impressionist roots and get as close a likeness as possible. |