I was a hobby artist for 25 years before I became a professional artist. In the last 10 years I became an elementary school art teacher, started showing my work at art shows, began teaching workshops nationally, opened my own studio/gallery in Santa Rosa Beach Florida, started licensing my artwork ... and have won some very cool awards!The enthusiasm for painting hit me in 1986, when I was twenty-one years old. I was in New York for my cousin’s wedding and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There I saw an intriguing watercolor painting, Prendergast’s Umbrellas in the Rain. Oh, all the beautiful shapes of color! Looking at it just made me happy—so happy that I bought the poster in the gift shop and put it up in my room for my senior year of college.When I was choosing my last-semester classes, I realized after scheduling my required classes that I needed one last credit to fill my schedule. I chose a watercolor class. It was a little scary for me, but the excitement of possibly making something like my Prendergast painting was calling me. The experience of putting paint down on the paper just felt right. It connected to something deep inside. I was beginning to learn. Many years lay ahead, but this was the start of my lifelong study of art. After college I worked in traditional jobs but was committed to taking art classes here and there. Life brought me to live in England, Chicago, South Florida, and then to North Florida. Art was just something fun I did as a stay-at-home mom when I had the time. I never imagined it as a career.Things changed when my oldest son was getting ready to go off to college. I took him to his orientation weekend and saw an inspiring speaker who left me with an interesting question: “What gift do you have inside that you could share with the world?” Hmm. I liked art. I liked kids. I will become an art teacher, I thought, and share art with my students. Long story short, I did just that. Within two years, I became Edge Elementary School’s first ever art teacher.I discovered I loved teaching, and the students loved to learn about art. It was through my research on how best to teach them about art that I rediscovered the basic elements of art. Through teaching my students, these simple yet powerful rules of art found their way into my own original artwork, though I did not realize this until later. I started to become a better painter, and sales flourished. It was an exciting time of self-growth. I learned I was a much better student now than I was in college, and I felt I could learn anything. I had a new idea.