Born in Point Pelee, Southern Ontario is where Penny has lived most of her life. She moved to the beautiful Creston Valley in 1994.

Penny has been doing art ever since she was a child, mostly doing portraits. She took a brief holiday from painting and started back up a little later in life.

Oil painting, pastel, photography and woodworking are Penny’s favorites. She has tried painting in watercolor and acrylic but went straight back to oil. Penny is a self-taught artist, with lots of trial and error. She would like to teach painting one day but she feels there should be no set rules when painting and is not sure the art world is ready for her. Her influences are inside her; it all starts with a dream. Most times they are so strong that the dream just has to come out, and by the end of her painting it is completely different from her original idea. Each piece takes approximately two months or more to complete, trying to get every detail just right.

Penny would like to learn proper portraiture in pastels or oils. She will pick up books or just she will just practice through trial and error. She absolutely enjoys creating, and for some reason Penny and other people can look at the same thing and Penny sees things that nobody else does. Penny’s favorite movie is “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. She wants to paint a series of pictures of the universe. On her wish list, Penny is looking at the purchase of a big book of photographs of astrological places, which were taken by the Hubble Telescope.

Penny’s oldest and most interesting pieces are two sepia paintings of cupids from 1867; Cupid Awoke and Cupid Asleep, which Penny has had in her possession for 30 years now. She also enjoys paintings by local artist, Juhl Campbell. Penny says they remind her of folk art from the 50’s. She loves folk art, and she really loves Juhl’s painting of Juhl’s dog. Penny saw it and thought about it for one year until she just had to have it and have it she does (in card form).

Penny is currently showing her art at Park Studio Gallery. She has sold almost all of her original oil paintings or gave them to charity, but she still has some of her original pastels left. She has had her originals made into print form and they are all available at the Park Studio Gallery.

A tip Penny would like to share is “Listen to your heart’s passions and bring them out in whatever media you choose!”

Biography taken by Yvonne Sulko

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