Connor and Chloe

Connor and Chloe- Two perspectives

I am very fortunate that I come from a very artistic family. My daughter Anna is a gifted artist in her own right. She prefers to create portraits of people with water colour. I love doing portraits but of animals and I use oils. We usually never paint together. We might live in the same house but our studios are in different places.

Our local arts society is having a "Generations" themed show where people from different age groups collaborate on art. It is meant to highlight how everyone can learn from another artist regardless of age and create beautiful harmonious pieces that bridges the age gap.

Anna and I struggled with our collaboration. What could we create together? With our differing medias, working on a single piece was ruled out. We finally decided to work on the same picture and then compare the final results. I never paint people, Anna never paints animals, it could have been a recipe for disaster. It was fun and the result is beautiful.

This whole process has been so very exciting for me. We painted my son Connor and the family horse, Chloe. I even used an old 10x8 canvas that my son had painted when he was a child and if you look at the original you can see little glimmers of his art peeking through.

As an artist I am always looking at new ways to expand my creative expression. Working with another artist was fun, challenging and competitive. I worried my person would look like a muppet, Anna worried her horse would look like a stump. I think the Fullerton Women excelled!