Biography
Susan Ball has
been painting in Sonoma County since 1983 when she met Charles Becker who
was demonstrating oil pastels at an Allied Arts workshop in Bodega Bay. Becker
became her teacher and started her on the road to her detailed still-life
studies. Her early work in oils was in the classical mode of the Italian masters
who used glazing and many layers of paint to achieve a detailed and accurate
portrait of their subjects.
After some years, Susan began to branch out into her own style, moving into plein-air studies and looser interpretations of still-life. She is fascinated by the structure and function of plants, having been at one time a botanist and biologist, before working in a clinical setting as a research biochemist in a London hospital. Details at a microscopic level fascinate her, but painting a broader view is her present approach.
Local workshops with well-known plein-air painters Armand Cabrera and Gil Dellinger gave her a greater appreciation of the level of talent in this area of fine-art, as did working in Wyoming with George Strickland.
Above all, she loves painting out of doors, since she grew up on a farm in England and is at heart a country person. She considers living in Sonoma County a blessing and feels that a more beautiful place would be hard to imagine. The local Farmers' Market supplies incredible subjects for her indoor studies, and the surrounding countryside is her outdoor studio.
Plein-air painting can also be interesting for other reasons. Once, at the end of a day on the hills near Sebastopol she heard loud slow breathing start up from a dense clump of trees nearby. Someone had mentioned a cougar sighting. Although they are usually silent she didn't stick around to investigate.
Painting is a quiet occupation, so animals often come out of hiding when she is working. Packing up at sunset after a long day painting, she saw a stag with a huge rack of antlers calmly watching her, silhouetted against a flaming scarlet sky. She will never forget it.
She is married to Patrick Ball, celtic musician and storyteller, in Sebastopol, where they live with their daughter, Fiona, and beloved elderdog, Sophie.
Susan Ratky Ball
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
