Art Chowder January | February 2018, Issue 13 | Page 12

Debbie: No mentor, but there are many
artists I admire—Carl Brenders, Nancy
Glazier, Charles Russell and, of course,
Michelangelo. I was eleven or twelve
when I first saw the Sistine Chapel, David,
and the Pieta. I swear I thought I saw the
statues taking a breath. The experience is
still as fresh today as it was all those years
ago.
Art Chowder: So this is a very personal
journey for you.
Debbie: Yes. The big thing with me is that
I want to paint the things I’m passionate
about—the things I value and love, and
I hope people can see that passion in my
work.
Art Chowder: I know I can. Your art is
incredible. What mediums do you work in?
Debbie: My preferred mediums are pastels,
acrylics, and scratchboard. I’ve worked
with acrylics the longest and choose to use
them more like oils than watercolors. By
that I mean I apply them thickly, with many
layers and/or glazes. The end result looks
like an oil painting when it is completed.
I love painting with pastels because of the
tactile nature of the medium. Pastels are
a pure pigment combined with a binder.
They are archival and have been around
for centuries, and have even been used by
many of the masters. The range of colors
and effects that can be achieved with
pastels is truly amazing. I never get tired of
working them.
Scratchboard is the newest adventure for
me. I recently did a series of four pictures
using scratchboard: a giraffe, an elephant, a
koala, and a camel. I laid out a white panel,
inked the part that I wanted to scratch, did
the background in acrylics, then scratched
the animal out and inked on top of that.
It’s time intensive, but I love the textures
you can achieve with various tools. I’ve
found this most interesting to explore when
working on pieces involving fur or feathers.
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ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE