Debbies' Artist Story

Relocated Brit currently living in Santa Barbara, having also lived on both sides of Canada, Memphis, Phoenix, Seattle, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Germany. Also, lucky enough to have traveled extensively as a child - the shapes, colors, and patterns of the different cultures I've encountered over the years influence my thoughts and choices on a daily basis. Now that my 2 boys are almost off to college, I once again have more time on my hands and in the last few years have been finding some new things to try like homemade soap and acrylic pouring art. 

Through the years I have tried many crafts/hobbies/art - sometimes self-taught, other times taking classes, and more and more soaking up how-to's on YouTube. In 2018 I started to pay attention to acrylic pour art painting videos from Michelle Edhouse located in New Zealand and thought, “I can do this”. A major incentive at the beginning was that our home needed some large format paintings to replace old, outdated wall art such as posters that had outlived their one-time appeal. Little 12”x12” paintings that are common outputs of you-tube videos were not going to do it for me. I aimed for bigger canvases.

Of course, the first thing that I learned was that “it is not as easy as it looks on the video”. Acrylic pour only leaves a portion of the process completely in the artist's hands and that once the process begins, there are no stopping points until it is completed. It took a lot of experimentation with different paint brands, colors, layering techniques, pouring containers, and canvas preparations to get a working knowledge for creating large format acrylic pour paintings I have found that I like bold colors and metallics. I am still trying to get to sizes above 36” with any consistency and still end up scrapping half of the paintings I create. The encouragement I got from my Facebook friends and the people who bought my paintings from the first couple of art fairs I attended bolstered my confidence and gave me the impetus to continue creating.

My confidence has built up enough that I have started helping others learn how this technique and have been lucky enough to build up a studio to really work on this more. I even had the opportunity to meet Michelle Edhouse at her studio in New Zealand while on a recent family trip. Luckily my family is very supportive of my many creative endeavors. My house is rarely spotless, but I'm a contented Mom & wife and motivated artist.