Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Member Focus Month - Linda McNamara-Boonstra

Just when you thought it was safe to open your Google Reader again!!! Still some more member focus days, you guys. Here's an amazing entry from Linda Boonstra - and I may have one more for you tomorrow. :)



Drawing is my biggest and most long standing passion. My attention span is horribly short and I don’t always have a lot of patience, but putting a pencil to paper has managed to stay attractive for a quarter of a century, though on an off and on basis. To this day I am not sure why I decided not to pursue art more seriously after secondary school when I had to choose my higher education it just did not feel right. I went on to study English instead and this led me to Ireland from my homeland, the Netherlands.


After university I have worked in a few less than satisfying fulltime jobs followed up by a two art courses that held a heavy focus on contemporary art, something it turns out I have as little interest in as I previously expected. I am a designer and an illustrator at heart and I appreciate beauty and skill: this is something I hope to show. I enjoy working both digitally (in Corel Painter and ArtRage) and traditionally (with pencil, felt tip markers and water colours). My work in mainly character based, I like to render a lot of people and animals and I draw my inspiration from life as well as things I see in films or on TV or the internet. I also have a great interest in mythology, supernatural phenomena and the fantasy genre and this too is often seen in my work.


At the moment I am happy enough working fulltime in a non-art-related job as beggars cannot be choosers in Ireland but I continue to hone my craft at the Pubscrawl and elsewhere. I have just decided to follow some life drawing classes and have recently started volunteering in a birds of prey centre in exchange for being allowed free entrance to draw their birds. When I am rich and famous, I will have the Pubscrawl to thank for most of my friends, all fine likeminded artists and I would recommend joining or starting such a group to anyone.

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