My first job out of college was as a “Documentation Specialist” at VALIC (an American General company) in Houston. It sounds terribly boring, but it’s right up my alley! In fact, I’ve kept a journal in many different forms since high school. A written journal naturally leads to a photographic one. During my early years of marriage, I picked up scrapbooking to journal my new life as a wife and then as a mother.
Scrapbooking naturally leads to photography. The more you look at stellar pages, the more you realize how badly your photos are lacking [everything].
The more you study photography, the more you begin to understand light and shadows, color and composition, etc. Therefore, photography naturally leads to fine art.
I began painting using acrylics because they are so inexpensive. I’ve dabbled in watercolor, but over time, I’ve fallen in love with oils. So much of my oil painting is rooted in documenting the amazing places I seen through travel. Trying to capture landscapes with the camera and then on the canvas has opened my eyes to opportunities in my own garden for beauty.
Gardening is a recent interest, mostly due to my oldest son’s developing passion for native plants. (He started off with a fascination bugs… which naturally led to an acute interest in their habitats and host plants.) Now, instead of visiting Lego stores, children’s museums, and zoos whenever we travel as a family, we seek out plant nurseries and botanical gardens–OK, and zoos too.