Finger Painting

I just stumbled across an award winning artist named Mary Jane Q. Cross.

She was an established commission portrait painter when a Pharmaceutical side effect left her with tremors over the right side of her body. (I smell lawsuit here!)

Anyway, you can't keep a good painter down! She started to use her fingers to paint and look at her results!

She doesn't have the time to do commissions anymore but she is storming the competitions with her fresh style. She is scooping up awards, too.

She reminds me of "Pre-Raphaelites meet 50's homemaking magazine covers".

I love how her lighting is bright and strong. She has a lot of back lit paintings.

Like this one...Mmmm I can feel the sun on my face right now. This one won a $5000 award at the American Oil Painters Society competition 2009.

She has been painting WAYYYyyy longer than I have. Like 40 years longer. But still. I think I could paint as good as her some day. Or not...

Mary Jane uses water soluble oil paints as they are less toxic and she puts on a barrier lotion on her hands before she paints.

Liz Lemon Swindle told me she uses her fingers to blend. I think I will try it sometime. It looks fun.

What an inspiration Mary Jane is to me! If life gives you tremors, make art. Or something like that. If she can paint with that difficulty, then I can paint with 8 kids! Sometimes they give me tremors. You can go to her website here.http://www.maryjaneqcross.com/home