holly brooks

I have always loved art. When I was young I loved to draw animals. I think there was a certain magical sense of acquisition after creating a likeness of what I saw. I spent hours trying to draw horses in perfect silhouette, becoming familiar with every curve in the profile of the horse. When I was in high school I kept sketchbooks and drew people and landscapes in ink and pencil. I loved art classes above anything else in school. I began as an art major in college but didn't believe painting would lead to a career. Later I went to graduate school and received my master's degree in Landscape Architecture. Designing landscapes kept my creative juices flowing. Since I began working for a landscaping company, my winters were slow and I found myself traveling for extended periods in Mexico and the Caribbean with my art supplies. A magical, inspiring painting trip to Todos Santos Mexico brought me back to my primary love of art and in 1999 I decided to pursue painting full time.

I have been painting now in watercolor and acrylic. I love watercolor because of its translucency and its ability to surprise you if you are willing to let the "happy accidents" happen. To me, the perfect watercolor is a balance between controlled knowledge and a bit of reckless abandon. I have more recently started painting in acrylic. In comparison to the watercolors, I am able to layer the acrylic indefinitely and therefore continually rethink what I am doing. I value simplicity above almost anything else. I like to be able to capture the landscape in an abbreviated way and to play with color and shapes on the canvas in such a way that it appears fresh and effortless. I don’t like extraneous detail. There are quite a number of ingredients, as artists know, that go into the magic of it, such as color relationships, composition, positive and negative shapes and value contrast. Ultimately, it is a way of saying, "This is what I was looking at or thinking of and appreciating, and here is the way I captured it in my vocabulary."