Kristi Darby’s Living Art
Story by: Keith Foster
Kristi had never painted a face but the neighborhood block party she was helping with needed someone to
paint children’s faces so Kristi volunteered. “I have always loved art and had taken art classes at the community
college”. The afternoon of painting children’s faces ignited Kristi’s interest and revealed a talent she didn’t realize
she had.
In the following months Kristi volunteered her services as a face painter for other events and found herself
in high demand. She soon became aware of how expensive her new interest was becoming. “As much as I loved
what I was doing the cost of the paints, brushes and the other supplies I used cost money and I couldn’t afford to
continue without at least getting back the cost of my supplies.”
As Kristi’s skills increased so did the demand for her painting. “I began to charge a fee to paint at events and I was
turning down events”.
With Kristi’s skills as an artist growing and demand for her at events growing it would have been easy for
Kristi to become complacent about her art. “One of the things I love about what I do is that no two faces, no two
bodies are alike. Every time I sit down to paint someone I see something unique about the canvas they present for
my art. Even if I were to try to replicate exactly a painting I have done before it will be different each time.”
Several times through her years of painting Kristi has attended to workshops to learn new techniques and to
get ideas. “There are so many extremely talented painters out there whose work I admire so much. I have gone to
workshops in the past, not because I want to copy them but because I want to see how they work. While I am not
going to change my style I often learned better ways to accomplish the painting I was already doing.”
Kristi currently is part of a home schooling cooperative where she teach \