Welcome to A Study in Shadow – Artwork by Jean.
Jean has always been fascinated with people – the attitudes that reflect in their faces, the emotion, the day to day struggles and victories; and in the human form, with its shadows and light – a landscape of hills and valleys. She taught herself how to oil paint and concentrated on portraits for some time. Always wanting to make the portraits as realistic as she could, she worked on her own in studies of the human form and face. She returned to college after several years away from school to learn more about painting and drawing, ending with a degree in Graphic Design and a renewed love of painting. After raising children while working in the Graphic Design field, she was inspired by an artist friend to return to her first love…..painting and drawing. She has returned to that love only recently and has been working on shadow and light, diving head first into the smell, the feel, the sight, and the sounds of painting.
Realistic with an emphasis on dramatic contrasts…..often paired with something musical (her second love), her paintings reflect softness yet are bold with the tension found in these stark contrasts of black and white, shadow and light. Color is soft, subtle and muted in her oil work.