Hi there, I’m Julie!
I’m a Colorado-based landscape artist who loves where I live. I grew up in Indiana and then spent 20 years living in Atlanta before moving to Denver in the summer of 2018. I live with my husband, Mike and the most amazing cat in the world, Gizmo. We love to travel and that is the inspiration for my work.
Since childhood I have had a crazy love of the sky, particularly the clouds. Remember when you used to lay on the grass and tell your friend that you see an elephant in that cloud to the left – well I still do that! I have always liked the shapes and colors in the sky, imagining what they could be and watching them change right before my eyes. Living here in Colorado I have a completely new appreciation of the sky, I feel like it changes daily (maybe hourly)! The colors of the sunsets (sunrise is a bit too early for me) and the blue of the sky against the wonder of the clouds never disappoints. Living in Atlanta for so long I was always drawn to how the sky meets the ocean, now I’m learning to love and appreciate all of the peace and beauty the mountains bring as well.
My goal is to share the wonder of the world through my brush strokes. It is a joy to hear what people see and experience in my art work through their own life experiences.
As a child I was always considered the “crafty one” or “imaginative”. I went to Purdue University to get a degree in Graphic Design and dabbled in that for several years. I really started to enjoy and explore my creative side after 10 years of corporate life.
I traded in my computer for a more creative outlet. I first started a bakery specializing in custom decorated cupcakes (think Cake Boss). I quickly learned that I didn’t enjoy the baking part but instead loved to create the elaborate decorations for cupcakes and cakes. It was then that I started picking up a paint brush and really listening to my creative side.
I had never considered myself a fine artist but was quickly surprised by how much I really enjoyed expressing the way I saw our trips and experiences and putting that onto the canvas. At first I painted for myself and our home and then for friends…now I paint in hopes of people like you finding joy and peace in what I create.
My Journey
Surprisingly I don’t have a very specific process. I paint mostly from experiences and places we have been. I can paint from a photo but prefer to paint from how I remember it in my head, I love the surprise of how it looks in the end, which also lets me “let-go” and let the creative side just create. I’m always open to where the brush and canvas take me instead of following a predicted photo.
I always start with a warm color underpainting as most of my paintings end up finishing on the cooler side of the color palette. By doing this the cool painting has a warm effect in the finished product. I usually have a color palette in mind from the beginning and then I’m off to the races. My main tools are brushes, lots and lots of brushes! My style lends to a lot of wet-on-wet blending so I have fallen in love with specific blending brushes. I don’t know what I would do if those brushes disappeared!
I normally work on just one or two at a time. I like to see one vision to completion before starting the next. Fortunately Denver’s dry air helps things dry faster so I can keep painting. When my piece is complete after many layers, I love to stand back from it and take it in and see what emotion it evokes. It’s amazing how your inner thoughts and emotions always seem to show through your painting without even meaning for them to. I step away for a day or two and let it simmer in me before I decide if it’s finished. I love to come back to it several times and reflect on the memories of the places that led to the painting and the stories that are behind each one.
My Process
My art work has a central theme around light and color through representational landscapes. I love to build up depth with a solid foundation followed by many layers of oil paint. I’m driven by the beauty that surrounds me in my daily life as well as many of our travels. My landscapes come from memories from long ago to as recent as looking out my window and seeing a beautiful Colorado sunset.
Each painting has a specific emotion or feeling from the place it was generated. I may combine several aspects from a trip or experience and put them all together because of the way it made me feel. I don’t care if the scene is an accurate depiction of what I saw, it’s about how it made me feel. Please read the stories on each picture, they try to capture what moved me to create it. Feelings I’m hoping you will share.
In the end, I hope to create a story through my paintings that anyone who views them can capture, a memory of their own or inspires them and brings them as much joy as I receive in the process.