About Me
In college I studied architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, MA graduating cum laude, third in my class. During college I took many different kinds of art classes, one of them being a watercolor painting class, but I did not have time to pursue it further due to my heavy architecture class load. After I moved to Vermont, I worked as an architect for a Manchester, VT firm until I had my daughter, Ashley. I then started my own architecture firm, Pratt Design, so I could stay home with her and my son Timothy who came two years later. I loved doing architecture and being able to be a mother at the same time and then I started watercolor painting as a hobby and fell in love with it all over again. In 2012 I switched gears and turned all of my time to painting and perfecting my craft. I am now working as a full time professional artist. I am a signature member in the American Watercolor Society, Vermont Watercolor Society and North East Watercolor Society.
About My Work
I do art shows and fairs throughout the year as well as entering into exhibits and galleries. I stay very busy painting things that interest me, as well as commissioned work including pet portraits. I teach watercolor classes for children and adults at all levels and found I love doing this just as much as I enjoy painting.
I found that my perfectionist nature from architecture carried over into my painting as well. It doesn’t matter if it’s a one minute sketch or a forty hour painting, I like things to look just so.
In my paintings, I enjoy focusing on certain details and highlighting them, instead of focusing on the entire scene. The hinge of a door, the peak of a roof, a single window of a house. I believe when you take one element out of the whole, it gives you an entirely different feeling.
Many small features all come together to make what a person would normally envision when they think of a barn, let’s say. But when you only focus on the hinge of the barn door and a few boards, it puts that small piece in an entirely different light. You notice how the sun hits that one object and the shadows it forms; the roughness and grain of the wood and the character and texture of the rust on the metal. That one piece seems to become the most important element, and you begin to notice how unique it is and the feelings that it evokes. You notice things about it that you would never become aware of if you just painted the full barn. There is so much more character in those small elements that I really like to show in my paintings.
