Featured Artist – Monica COBURN

It seems like I have been ‘Arting’ forever as my mother always had me doing some kind of fun stuff. My middle school art teacher sent a letter home encouraging my parents to help me pursue art. That letter sparked quite the debate on who got credit for my art talent. My grandmother (dad’s mom) was an amazing oil painter. However, my mother earned a full ride art scholarship to John Heron School of Art – Butler University (not sure who won that argument). In HS I majored in art and have taken many classes through the years. My mother was my champion, she was always promoting and pushing me to join art groups and classes with her.

I started with oils in HS and find it pretty amazing that a public school would supply oils for students! I would labor to create the perfect picture, spending weeks on one picture. Yet, I always admired those who could create and walk away in the same day! After all, look at Bob Ross. lol. From my start in oils doing mostly landscapes, I moved to still life, and flowers. A few years later I moved to acrylics and was resolved to not stress the pictures so much! I found working looser so freeing and relaxing!

After an amazing class on portraits, I found using pastels, charcoal and graphite pencils not as stress-filled. It is ironic, since I started in oils, that I have no desire to return to oils. A recent retreat class focused on oils sent  me retreating back into my old stress filled, ‘the picture has to be perfect’ thoughts. I think those oils will just have to stay on the shelf until I study more on Monet and Van Gogh.

My favorite subject to paint has turned into beachy things. After all, I do live in FL now. Any, I mean ANYTHING beach…fish, shells, sand, waves, you get what I mean lol. Oh, and my cat. Oh, and my family. Oh, and…. yeah, not sure I have a fave. lol

The first art group I belonged to was Indy Decorative Artists (IDA – now known as IDACC). Moving from Indiana to Florida had me looking for other chapters of SDP. I found two, one in Naples (Naples Decorative Artists – NDA) and the other in Cape Coral (Dedicated Artists of Southwest Florida – DASF). I find it inspiring to paint in a group and cherish the many friends I’ve made with these fellow artists.

Where Monica Teaches

How to Contact Monica