Emma...I am an Artist Too

Emma working on adding some colour. At this stage she has added collage and gesso for texture, some Stewart Gill Byzantia paints for some shimmer to peek through and is now adding glazes to build up some rich colour.

Emma's painting in the early stages, just before she moved on to painting the background.


This is Emma...artist extraordinaire! She took classes in my studio for 3 years and has continued on with me as a private student since I decided to close. For as long as I've known Emma, she has had an artist's heart. She has always approached every lesson with excitement, enthusiam and creativity. I needed a creative kick in the pants, so I recently took some online workshops, including one with the fabulous Suzi Blu. I learned some new techniques, was reminded of old favourites, and most importantly feel creatively rejuvinated. I started approaching my art as Emma does again...as if every painting is an adventure...because of course, it is.

I always show whatever I have been working on to Emma, so when she saw my mixed media girls, she wanted to try her hand at this type of painting too. She's been working on her own mixed media girl for the last several weeks, probably around 5 hours worth of work so far. We have reviewed the concepts of drawing a face in quadrants, layering, creating texture, applying collage, colour theory and more. This was Emma's first attempt at shading a face and I have to admit to butterflies in my stomach when I saw her wonderful results! Can you believe she is only 7!? Emma still has a fair bit of work to do on this painting, but wow...what a journey so far.