BACKGROUND
Ann started drawing at age 2, mostly on the walls!  She was the class artist all through grade school and high school.  As an adult artist she is inspired by master portrait painters Michael Shane Neal, Dawn Whitelaw, Anne Rodgers and Tony Ryder, all of whom she has studied with extensively for the past ten years.  She has traveled throughout the United States to experience other portrait artist demonstrations..David Lafell, Joseph Sulkowski, Daniel Gerhartz, Raymond Everett Kinstler, and Dan Greene, to name a few.

EDUCATION
Ann received a BA degree in Art from Peabody/Vanderbilt University.  She has developed her own style incorporating all that she has learned studying with the masters and her mentors, as well as from her extensive visits to museums throughout the country to see the works of Sargent, Cassatt, Sorolla, Whistler, Zorn and others.  Ann believes that the masters of the Baroque and the nineteenth century are the best teachers and she has studied their works extensively and continuously. She loves the 19 th century landscape paintings of George Innes, but also is excited by today's colorists like Dawn Whitelaw.

STYLE
Ann favors color over earth tones, but loves the dark moody backgrounds of Sargent.  Her style is classical but painterly.  When lighter, airier backgrounds are called for she enjoys painting those as well.

She works predominately in oils but also does pastels and charcoal drawings.

INSPIRATION
Ann loves painting children; their rounded forms she finds very beautiful. She enjoys capturing the character in adults faces and portraying "who they are" in the ways they position themselves naturally when posing.  She sometimes paints from life, but time constraints and children's' wiggles call for photography most often.  Ann believes that a portrait must first be a painting, using strong composition with correct color values and color harmony.

If you ask Ann about her painting career she responds, "I am truly in love with painting, and I get excited about every project I begin.  I strive to grow as an artist and to continue to learn and improve each day, each year, forever more!"  She has painted many landscapes and still-life throughout the years and she is represented in galleries in Nashville and Chicago .  She is a member of the National Portrait Society and The Oil Painters of America.  Last year her portrait "Leslie" was juried into the Oil Painters of America annual International exhibit in Chicago .