Featured Artist Diane Morgan

Inspired by the beauty of the natural world, artist Diane Morgan creates larger-than-life botanical paintings. View more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

I see art in everything. I want to paint it all. It brings me great joy and a sense of accomplishment. A brush is the artist’s magic wand that allows me to bring my vision to life.

 

 

Deeply influenced by Georgia O’Keeffe’s interpretations of florals, I love painting large, close-up images of—well, everything. I always have a camera with me and take hundreds of photos every week for reference. I envision a painting in all of nature’s wonders.

 

 

I work from photos and directly from life, trying never to exactly copy anything, but create my interpretation of it. People tell me that because of my close-ups, they are seeing things they never noticed before. That makes me happy. If you look more closely, you may learn something new about yourself.

 

 

In a whole different vein, I love painting cars and do many commissions in watercolor, and oil. I’m from Detroit. I can’t help it. I have a little motor oil in my veins.

 

 

Besides my own personal paintings, I enjoy being a part of my community by working on public art projects. I have done many. The projects include benches, a picnic table, signal boxes, art transferred to tiles for a city bridge and, also, a large eight-foot-tall by 32-foot circumference dome building in a community garden.

 

 

The Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians in our county created a wonderful opportunity for local artists. They select one artist every two months for a large display of artwork in the Seven Feathers Restaurant of their Augustine Casino in Coachella. They do not collect commission on sales, and pay a $1000 stipend for the show. I had 26 large oils on display in April and May of this year.

 

 

I began college as a language major, but found myself drawing my books instead of reading them. So I switched to art my junior year. It was the best decision of my life. I began my career in advertising right out of college, and then managed the public art program for the City of Palm Springs for 11 years.

 

 

Now I paint full-time and teach classes in watercolor, oil and acrylic at the Artists Center in Palm Desert, California. If you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.

 

Diane Morgan invites you to follow on Instagram and Facebook.

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