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ABOUT the ARTIST

Brenda E. Shook with mother at Chandor Gardens, Weatheford, Texas

I am a visual artist who uses a variety of wet and dry art media, separately or together (mixed media), to make realistic and/or narrative art about people, creatures, places, and things while, simultaneously, creating abstract art inspired by road maps.   

 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT ART…

  • I am fascinated by artists’ ability to:

    • realistically document past and present people, creatures, places, and things in life

    • take apart, or abstract, reality

    • creatively express ideas, emotions, and experiences in unique ways 

    • demonstrate how people are alike and different

    • communicate personal and global stories, attitudes, and beliefs 

    • design and decorate the world

 

BECOMING AN ARTIST…

  • For me, making art began as a fun and therapeutic way to deal with some of the pain, stress, and anxiety I have after living with chronic illnesses from early childhood through today.  

  • After graduating from the University of North Texas (UNT), in 2001, with a BFA in Drawing and Painting and Visual Art Studies, I taught both technical and creative problem-solving skills to high school level art students in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for 12 years.

 

MY ART…

  • I love the entire creative process.  I enjoy using my creativity and different tools and media to express my life and imagination (and other people’s, too):

    • I prefer to create realistic, narrative portraits, but I also find inspiration in my daily life, nature, words, history, religion, music, dreams, symbols, objects, and, most recently, abstract art and maps.

    • I keep sketchbooks and journals (and I have an idea board and a collection of Post-It notes) where I enjoy brainstorming ideas or writing down images I see in my head (usually when I am waking up or falling asleep) for possible artworks.  

    • I use my notes to make sketches to plan: how my subject matter will fit into a scene, size relationships, how much detail I will include, and an overall color palette.

    • I like researching how people, places, and things should look in my art—my camera, the internet, and books are close friends to me at this time.

    • My favorite media to use (either separately or together) as an artist are: oil and soft pastels, colored pencils, graphite pencils, acrylic paint, and watercolor paint.  I also enjoy ceramics and printmaking.  I plan to learn encaustic art in the future—I suspect I will love it as a medium.  

  • The focus of my early artwork in college was primarily larger, realistic, acrylic or mixed media portraits with simplified backgrounds on a variety of surfaces—canvas, wood, or unusual fabrics.

  • Years of teaching secondary art gave me the opportunity to explore and experiment with different subjects and media techniques—in addition to portraiture—I might, otherwise, not have pursued. 

  • Since 2015, I choose to, also, make abstract art inspired by line arrangements on maps—particularly Texas maps.  I was influenced to use this subject matter by a collage I saw in a book and a dream I had a few nights later. (My artworks look nothing like the collage—but the spark was there, nonetheless.) 

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