Terri Ficenec: Saying Hello!

[Darla Dixon]

Hi Terri, it's nice to meet you. I have 9 year old twin daughters, so I understand EXACTLY what you meant about it being a little difficult with 'high spirited' kids around! I also have a small house and now a 2 month old baby boy. My art table is in a corner of the living room with all kinds of distractions. I work in graphite pencil, colored pencil, micron pen, pastels, and very often all of the above for mixed media pieces.

With children around, if I were you, I'd stay away from the oil paints and turpenoid etc because of health risks to the family, unless you can find a new well ventilated area in which to work. Obviously at 8 and 9 years old, there's less risk of them ingesting the chemicals, but the chemicals in the air are what I'm referring to as risk factors.

Someone mentioned Winsor & Newton, and they do make very good water-soluble oil paints. They are a special new formulation. I think most portrait artists don't like to work in acrylic because acrylic dries so fast, and there's also a little bit of the opinion by many artists, whether they feel it consciously or unconsciously, that unless they are painting in oils, they don't feel like they are 'really' painting. I am open to all mediums for portraiture, have tried oils and it was fine but I didn't feel the connection I felt that I needed to have to create. Maybe I will someday.