Blue was always my favorite color. It reminded me of the sky and the ocean and of calmness and peace. So, this was the color for my self portrait at one-year-old. Looking at the black and white picture, I felt my true nature. I saw my pure spirit. No words were written down, but I ...

For the first time in my life, I put everything else aside. I kept my TV off, and instead I painted. In each piece I did, I felt so clear and so in the flow with the energy of my spirit. The world as I knew it faded away and I was absorbed in the ...

Have you ever found a friend who you could be completely yourself around? Someone who charges you up, sparks your creative juices, and brings out the best in you? Well, for me, this person is Jeanie, my roommate from art school. We have been great friends since our first day at The Art Institute of ...

It's exciting to seek a better future. To see a new land as an open opportunity. To leave everything behind and envision a better tomorrow. A better life was my grandfather's plan when he uprooted his family from Italy to the States. This picture was snapped as they stepped out of the airplane upon arriving in ...

I found a photo of my sisters and me sitting in our backyard under a 12 foot sunflower. It was so tall that it couldn't fit in this photo so I had to use another picture of the flower itself as a reference for this painting. That sunflower brought back good memories. I can remember ...

After I finished Nipote (meaning nieces and nephew in Italian), I went back to my old photos. I found this one of my grandparents for my next painting. I’m not even sure where I got this picture from but it was when Nonna (my grandmother) was healthy. She was a stylish woman I was told, ...

I loved this abstracting technique. It was refreshing to draw only parts of facial features, leaving all details out. It was so soothing to let my feelings out onto my surface, watching how the colors intermix. It felt so easy. It felt so comfortable. I couldn't wait to start my next piece. I searched through ...

Immediately upon finishing Drinking Cappuccino, and because of that amazing experience, I had to paint another picture. Plus, I have always wanted to know why I felt the way I did and maybe painting could help me understand more. Maybe if I found a photo from when I was a child, I could sort out ...

Drinking Cappuccino, 2005 For over two decades, I tried to make painting a part of my routine. Every few years, I took evening classes to paint realistic pictures in figure drawing, portraiture, or watercolor. Even though my work was fairly decent, after the class ended, I packed away my supplies. A year after I moved to Los ...