I was born in 1954 and grew up in Fort Kent. As far as I can remember I was drawing, painting, or making art out of any object I could find. As I grew older, I became more serious about my artwork and I was forever in search of ways to improve my artwork. I’d read what I could get a hold of about artists and how they began to be interested in their form of medium. I remember my earliest paintings were of people and animals, funny that I am still drawn to these subjects, although I do enjoy landscapes as well. I tried oil painting, pastel, and colored pencil work and loved working with each of them. I enjoyed learning the different way that you have to manipulate the medium to achieve the result you want. Each medium was very different, but at the same time gratifying in its own way. If I wanted to do very detailed, realistic drawings, the colored pencil was unquestionably the medium to use.

When I was in high school I attended painting classes given by Claude Picard, a Canadian artist. It was my first formal art education that I took and it left me with a strong desire to make art my profession. I graduated from Fort Kent Community High School in 1972, and even in high school was known as an artist, but would have loved to have the opportunity to have taken art classes in school. I am so pleased to see students have art in the schools to develop their skills and encourage them to attend art schools.

I married my husband, Louis, a year after graduating from high school, had my children and through the years continued to make art with anything I could find. As I was bringing up my family, I always found ways to incorporate an art project for the children to do to keep them busy and interested in making things with simple materials and a bit of imagination. I worked at occupations that I found fulfilling outside my home, but always did artwork on the side and always told people that I would do my artwork as a profession when the time was right. Recently I was able to see my plan to fruition.

I have recently achieved my life long dream of graduating from college with a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree. In May of this year, I did just that and graduated Magna Cum Laude , from the University of Maine at Presque Isle earning my Bachelor Degree in Fine Art. Never once did the thought that I was too old to go after my dream, even if I was a quite a bit older than the other students. I never once felt or was made to feel that I didn’t fit right in with the others in my classes.

I studied under such great art professors as Anderson Gilles, Leo Paul Cyr and Cliff Boudman. I learned so much from each of them and will forever be grateful for their guidance and encouragement. They gave me exactly what I had been looking for all my life, knowledge, and experience in the arts. Professor Gilles helped me to achieve what I wanted to bring forth in my drawings and paintings in class. I love to work in the realist style, but I’m always interested in learning and working in other styles, although I must admit, it was sometimes frustrating. They taught me to focus and streamline my work instead of going from one topic to another. I now am able to finish a series of work without a problem, a great accomplishment in itself.

My inspiration for my artwork remains the same, to paint or draw what I love best…animals and people. In college I did do abstracts as well as different styles of painting that the professors that talked about, but I always revert back to my first love, realism. What has changed is my approach and knowledge of my medium to complete my pieces. I will continue to learn and paint till I can no longer hold a brush. My need to paint is so strong that it is the first thing I think about in the morning and at night before I fall asleep, I’m usually planning my next day’s work. This is what convinces me that I have reached my goal, one that I will continue to work at and improve each day. Being out of college will not mean that my days of learning are finished; I will be attending a 5 day workshop on painting portraits at the Coastal Maine Art Workshops in Rockland in the end of September. Hopefully, I will be able to attend one workshop every year in Rockland. I plan to continue working with my work and website: www.portraitsbylulu.com and will be updating it shortly with my newest work. Currently I have a lot of my work on my Facebook page and would love to be friends with any of you who are interested in art. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/lulu.pelletier?ref=ts.