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Associate Member
Full Time Pro
Joined: Oct 2002
Location: Licking, MO
Posts: 8
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Patti Jo here, acrylic, oil and graphite
I have been a member of the Forum for a couple of months, so figured it was time to introduce myself! My name is Patti Jo and I have been doing portrait commissions since 1974, when I did my first one of myself as a baby, just to see if I could do it, and my neighbor commissioned me to do one of her father. Amazing to think that has been 28 years ago!
I work primarily in acrylics and graphite, but have done oils, and want to get into doing them more. But, due to living in an 8 x 42 foot trailer in the woods, that will have to wait until I build a studio.
I work mainly from photos, preferably that I take, but also work from the customer's photo. I also do quick graphite sketches from life, which take me about an hour to do.
For the last 9 years, I have made my living as a tattoo artist, specializing in portrait tattoos, Native American and covering up ugly old tattoos, but am easing out of that to get into doing my portraits, paintings and photography full-time, which is where my heart truly lies! I am grateful to have fallen into a career that has supported me by doing art, even though not in the medium that I love, I have still been doing art everyday! I am ready to give my real art all my time, as I am not getting any younger, and I know, that is what I was put on this earth to do.
I have just been authorized to become licensed as an Emmett Kelly, Jr. official artist, so will be spending a lot of my time painting and drawing "America's Favorite Clown". If you don't know who I am talking about, he is the famous, sad hobo clown.
My art education consists of 3 years in community college, including summer, never leaving the art building. I took every possible art class available, until I dropped all of them, being discouraged not to be learning to paint like Michelangelo, and took photography. This led to me becoming a portrait photographer for Olan Mills, on the road for a couple of years, until a back injury prevented me from doing that anymore. I have won two scholarships at Scottsdale Artist School, one with Jack Faragasso and the other with Tom Darro, and have taken other workshops there with Robert Abbett and Donald "Putt" Putman. I also have studied with Jessica Zemsky, Jack Hines, Jan Kunz, and others in independent workshops. As far as actual "Portrait" training, I really have been learning that by trial and error, over the last 28 years, and will never stop learning.
I have spent the last 20 some years working heavily with many Native American tribes across the nation, including Canadian Salish. As a result of this work, I have been commissioned by many Indian families to do portraits of them in their full regalia. Even though these paintings "look like" merely figuative paintings of Indians, they are, in fact, portraits of real people, in their Native costume, or Regalia, as it is called, and in their Native surroundings. Such as on their horse, in the tipi, etc. It has been very rewarding work, and I have made many life long friends as a result, and have had many wonderful opportunities, that most people never would get the chance to have. I have photographed a Native American wedding, and slept in the Pueblo at Zuni, N.M, been the guest at the God Mothers camp at the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona, at a Sunrise Ceremony and attended a naming ceremony on the Cheyenne Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. I had the privelege to cook three consecutive years in the Longhouse, at the annual Salmon Feast on the Columbia River, for the Yakima Indians in Washington state. The list goes on and on.
I love art, and told my mother at the age of three, that "I am going to be an artist when I grow up!!", and have never wanted to do anything else.
I hope to be accepted into this site as a "Stroke of Genious Portrait Artist", and am in the process of applying for that now. Meanwhile, I am glad to be a member of the Forum, and hope to make many lifelong, fellow artist friends, and to always continue to learn. Thank you for being here , from a total face lover, Patti Jo
I am including a photograph of me painting, and one of my Indian "Portraits" This little charmer is J.J. Bald Eagle, from the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.
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