Diane is a self-taught watercolorist who has always loved painting in watercolors. Most of the inspirations for her paintings come from either old sketches and photos or from the wonderful surroundings that the Great Northwest has to offer. She especially loves working the “wet on wet” technique with watercolors; using lots of water on paper and watching how the watercolors flow is so fascinating to her. Every painting is always telling her a different story. Every painting is an original even if it’s the same elephant series or sheep paintings. It is always interesting to her the different reactions people get from looking at the same paintings so that is why she likes to mix it up a bit by putting in an extra elephant or making a bird look very mischievous or putting a boat off to one side of that painting. One of the things she learned about herself recently is that after falling and hurting her right arm, she can paint with her left. She learned more about watercolor abstract and the different movements of the paints, all the while having loads of fun and discovering it is harder than it looks to achieve what she wants from it.

In 2005, Diane had the opportunity to live and work in Port Townsend so she and her husband could be near their daughter, who was just starting UW, and her dad, who lived up the street from them so she could “keep her eyes on him”. Moving from California was one of the best decisions they ever made. A lot of her painting credit goes to her family, the people of Port Townsend, and the incredible artists at the Port Townsend Gallery for their support. Without them, she probably would never get a chance to explore watercoloring or show her paintings.  Thank you all very kindly.