Artist Bio
I fell in love with art the day my kindergarten teacher set the easels up outside. We had three art stations but I only remember the easels. Standing there with fingerpaint dripping from my hands, I stared in wonder at the mess I’d made and something inside of me came to life.
But despite that early experience, I didn’t pursue painting until much later in my adulthood. I never enjoyed drawing and thought a real artist was defined by the magical ability to doodle a masterpiece on a notebook in Science class. It wasn’t until I took up rubber stamping as a hobby that I discovered I had a knack for watercolor, and one day I realized that if I could just draw the simple outline of a shape or a landscape, I could make my own paintings. I did some simple line drawings and painted them and I was hooked! I checked out a bunch of “learn how to watercolor paint” books from the library and found my new hobby. Some of my first serious pieces:
“Tiger on the Prowl” ©2003 Penny O’Halloran, all rights reserved
“Autumn Chickadee” ©2001 Penny O’Halloran, all rights reserved
Several years later I returned to school and studied art and design. My love of art has led me to explore many mediums, both traditional and digital. I’ve studied in classrooms, workshops, videos, and out in the field. And the park. And the beach. With fellow artists or alone. I’ve lost and found myself in my studio working into the early hours of the morning and painted in high energy workshops on collaborative art projects with a room full of artists and tribal music beating in the background. Creative energy is the life force that energizes me and it was a happy day when I realized that the whole world is a studio.
An experiment with watercolor and sea water at the Oregon coast:
“Oregon Beach”, impressionist w/c with sea water ©2002 Penny O’Halloran
My studio, when the wood was all new and unspoiled.
Dream Job and Day Job
In December of 2017, I published my first two illustrated children’s books under the pen name, Penny N. Hall: “Not Your Ordinary Book of Cat Tales” and “The Panther and the Girl”. Professionally, I do web development and design, and write for magazines, blogs, and website content writing. I also take on art commissions, and occasionally show my work at the First Friday Art Walks in Bend, Oregon. I’ve started working on my next two children’s books, with a loose publication date of Spring of 2020. If you’d like to know more about my published work, visit the penny n. hall portfolio page or my author page on Amazon.
