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When new LARAC member
Diane M. Swanson moved from Massachusetts to Queensbury this past
November, it was more like a return home than a relocation. “I grew up
in Westchester County,” she explains, “But my parents had a second home
in Lake George. They moved up here full time just before I entered
college.”
Swanson attended
Syracuse University, where she earned a BFA in Illustration and English,
and then returned to Warren County to work as a commercial artist,
eventually moving on to work in the print industry and later, in
Massachusetts, she worked as a manager at Barnes and Noble.
How an illustrator winds
up working at Barnes and Noble is not as unusual at it might seem at
first. “I originally wanted to do children’s book illustrating,” Swanson
said. Now a stay at home mom, Swanson does commissioned portrait work,
usually in pastel. Her children’s portraits introduce unique
illustrative concepts into the finished work, giving further information
about the subject’s personality.
Since her children are
young, aged 2 and 4, Swanson primarily works in pastel and watercolor.
“Those are the most environmentally friendly mediums in which to work
when you have small children,” she explains. In addition to doing pastel
portraits of people and animals, Swanson also does house portraits in
watercolor, as well as landscapes in watercolor, pastel, and gouache.
Swanson has participated
in many regional juried exhibitions, including the Adirondack Park
Centennial Watercolor Exhibition, which originated in the Adirondack
Visitors Center and then toured throughout the Adirondacks, exhibitions
at the Fitchburg Art Museum and the Leominster Art Association, North
Country Art Association’s Annual Regional Juried Exhibition, and the
Colonie Art League National Juried Exhibition.
A member
of the Upper Hudson Valley Watercolor Society, Swanson plans to exhibit
in the group’s annual exhibition at Crandall Public Library this June.
She also plans on showing at this year’s LARAC’s Members’ Exhibition. In
addition, examples of Swanson’s portraits may be viewed in LARAC’s Gift
Shop. Diane may be contacted at
diane@freehawk.net. |
