About the Artist: Karen has been drawing for as long as she can remember. Fashion illustration studies in college led to a lifelong love of the human figure and face, but circumstances (a husband in the Navy!) led to creating presentation paintings of military ships or aircraft. Finally she resumed life drawing studies and went back to her first love, concentrating on commissioned portraits of people rather than planes. After moving to Florida she continued to do portraits but also turned her attention to landscapes based on a lifetime collection of photos taken wherever she lived or visited. The goal of each work is always to bring out what is uniquely beautiful about each face or each setting. Primarily she works in oils or pastels and her art can be seen at the Artist's Guild of Anna Maria Island and frequently at the ArtCenter Manatee in Bradenton.