I’m a 72 year old art student and live in Hanford. I’ve taken drawing classes at college and painting classes from Judith.

One of my favorite and most rewarding painting experiences has been illustrating children’s chairs.

I got started illustrating chairs in 2013 when Judith asked the students in our acrylic painting class if we’d like to illustrate a chair to donate to the Children’s Storybook Garden & Museum (CSGM) as a fundraiser. I was fairly new to painting but had good drawing skills and I was excited to try painting a chair. My first chair was “Secrets of the Garden” and auctioned for $125 at the CSGM in 2013. (Judith’s chair was everyone’s favorite and went for $250?). I’ve illustrated nine children’s chairs.

I choose the books for my chairs based on two things: the book must have a good moral; and there must be one large, catchy, central illustration that captures the essence of the book. I use this main illustration for the seat of the chair because it’s the largest area, then paint other illustrations on the back and legs and arms. I try to tell the story of the book through the pictures on the chair. Part of the fun of illustrating a chair is the placement of the smaller paintings. And, part of the challenge is to fit as many illustrations on the chair as I can. I often combine pieces from several different pages in one place. ​

After painting a couple of chairs I learned that it’s easier to paint the chairs when they’re flat, before they’re put together rather than having to do contortions to reach into tiny areas. So I order unassembled chairs for these projects. I use outdoor acrylic paints for my chairs and seal them after they’re finished to protect them from the weather.

I donate my chairs to the Children's Storybook Garden & Museum and to the Kings Art Center for their annual fundraisers. The chairs and the book are auctioned as a pair.

The Children's Storybook Garden is an educational garden and museum made up of 13 individual gardens where children can explore such gardens as; The Kitchen Garden, the Farming Garden, the ABC Animal Garden, the gardens of Beatrix Potter, Monet, Van Gogh, and many more. In each area children learn the about the background or skills specific to that garden. President and founder Judy Wait has always loved gardening and brought the CSGM to Hanford after learning that programs offering gardening skills could not be taught in the local schools. The Hanford CSGM is modeled after Storybook Gardens in England and in Europe. Their classes provide interactive and creative, multi-cultural, hands-on educational activities and programs in horticulture, literacy, California farm history, fitness, art, music, drama, life science, and joy.

The 13 garden/learning areas are: ABC Animal Garden, Seasonal Garden, Topiary House & Garden, Dinosaur Dig Garden, Charlotte’s Web Dairy Barn, Teaching Kitchen Garden, Log Cabin Garden, Monet’s Garden, Peter Rabbit & Friends Garden, Three Little Pigs Houses, Woodland Garden, Butterfly Garden, and the Van Gogh House.

The Kings Art Center (KAC):

The KAC enhances the lives of Kings County residents by providing a center in which to experience the visual arts. There are monthly Exhibits in the main Marcellus Gallery as well as special exhibits of high school and elementary school students’ art and ceramics in the Banister Studio.

The KAC offers After School and Summer Art Classes for children as well as art lessons for adults. Students learn about media and technique and hone their aesthetic interests while creating their own works of art.

In addition to the children’s chairs, I’ve done four other projects:

In 2005, I compiled a cookbook of Favorite Recipes from Hallie’s Kitchen for my family and close friends. I used my own drawings to illustrate the cookbook.

In 2016, I drew the borders for Isabella’s Garden, a children’s book and fundraiser for the CSGM. We wanted “just some vines winding around the pages with little surprises popping out.” So, with that in mind I made a template for the vines so they’d be consistent on all the pages. Then I started thinking about drawings that would go with the story on each of the pages. I knew the drawings would need to be small enough to rest in the vines and asked, “What are all the little things in a garden?” I loved the challenge of coming up with different garden creatures, toys and flowers.

In 2020 and 2021, I illustrated two flamingos for a fundraiser for the KAC. The flamingos are rented out in flocks for a day at a time. We now have a huge flock of 47 that have been uniquely embellished by local artists, amateurs, and kids. These flamingos bring a great deal of joy to our community. I painted Rodney the Rooster and Jenny the Giraffe for this project.

I painted the red brick house for the CSGM’s Three Little Pigs Garden. The house is made out of wood but I painted it to look like brick.

I’ve been thinking about the healing power of creativity. I’ve learned how very important creativity is to my life during this year of Covid captivity. Art has helped me not only to express my emotions but also to balance them.

I’m not a very experienced artist but I am a very appreciative one. I am drawn to my painting every day to enjoy the hypnotic release I find in the motions of applying paint to canvas and creating new pictures. Painting lifts me from the anxieties of the day, settles my mind on a variety of possibilities, and brings me peace.

I took a few acrylic painting classes from Judith ten years ago when she lived and taught in Hanford. I was thrilled to learn in early 2021 that she was offering classes on Zoom and am taking her acrylic and watercolor classes.

These classes have been exhilarating. Both classes have inspired me to try new techniques such as using gold leaf, blending paints, and blocking areas in my painting – this has been fun and challenging. Judith’s classes and Judith’s nature are the thing I most look forward to every week. Meeting new people in these classes, then seeing them every week has been a most welcome anchor and has fulfilled my need for human connection.

I aspire to be an artist and at the age of 72 I know I still have several years to hone these skills! And, there are real artists in my family. My father was an author, Jonreed Lauritzen, who had 16 novels and children’s books published from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. One novel, The Rose and the Flame, was made into a movie in 1955, Kiss of Fire, starring Jack Palance and Barbara Rush. And, most famous is my uncle, Les Clark, an animator, who was the first of Disney’s nine old men. He joined Disney in 1927 and was the only one to work on the origins of Mickey Mouse. At that time, I had no concept of what went into the art of animation. Uncle Les was as charismatic and kind as he was talented. He even painted my portrait in 1959 when I was eleven. It was thrilling to go to the movies with my siblings as a kid. We clapped and cheered like crazy when we saw my dad’s name and Uncle Les’s name in the movie credits. Les Clark was not a blood relative so I didn’t inherit his artistic talent but his daughter, my cousin, Miri Weible, did. She is a wonderful artist and teacher who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. You can Google her work at Miri Weible artist.

In addition to painting in acrylic and watercolor, I enjoy writing, cooking and sewing.