CjenningsArt

I love to build up, and take away from the medium to create textures and areas of great interest to the eye- but love to also leave places for the imagination. I usually work with my homemade ink (From Oak Galls), watercolors, India Ink, Pen, and Charcoal. Although occasionally I work with Oil Paints and Pastels, or Egg Tempera

I have lived in California all my life, and currently live near Squaw

Creek, in a blue barn house, at the base of Bald Mountain, Sierra Foothills. I believe I first experienced, and fell in love with art through music and nature. My family once lived in the Sierra Mountains while I was still a toddler. We would take walks under the falling leaves of cottonwood trees. I experienced the leaves as coins, showering down on me in a flutter of golden sunlight. This is one of my earliest childhood memories. We would travel down into a valley town to pick up supplies or visit a doctor and would almost always return home listening to a special recording of Claude Debussy...His music flooded my soul with art and woke my imagination. I still listen to Debussy for painting inspiration. At first I was self taught. Often tracing, sketching my favorite birds and animals...they were my first drawings. My Sister was the Artist growing up, I always felt called to be different. She inspired me though- her artwork intrigued me. In high school I took an Art Class for the first time, and soon realized I also had a craving to learn more, it then became my passion. I attended a Local College, where I studied Life drawing, Oil Painting, Sculpture, Basic Design, Art History, and Graphic Design. I experimented with materials, and gleaned a lot of wisdom from my favorite teachers. I admit most of my experience and development has been through living life, loss of loved ones, maturing, getting married, having five beautiful children, and learning by example through mistakes and studying techniques of my favorite Artists. I have been teaching my children at home, being a fulltime mom for more than a decade, and am finally returning to my passion for Art. Christine