"In 1970, my instructor at the El Paso Art Academy put a black wax pencil in my hand and my path in art was decided. My light touch and patience married perfectly with the medium, and the works I created were well received, winning awards starting with the first exhibition I entered. After 20 years of drawing, selling, exhibiting, and teaching private lessons, I finally discovered the traditional oil painting method I had been seeking. Given my extensive art background, I quickly picked up the methods at the Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore. As with the Colored Pencil, this traditional handling of the materials inspired the same instinctive connection and subsequent recognition starting with my first painting.

Despite the tight realism, many of my pieces are not actual reproductions of anything I’ve seen, but rather a composite of various images I’ve taken over the years, augmented with sketches and imagination. Often, I deliberately flatten and slightly distort perspective, as did the old masters, to create a composition more pleasing to the eye. Everything is created freehand with no mechanical or reproductive means. Among the honors my work has received are numerous national and international awards including 18 in New York and London group exhibitions. In 2004, The Art Renewal Center chose me among their initial 34 artists selected for The Living Masters Gallery in their online museum dedicated to traditional and realist art. I and/or my work have been published in 24 magazines and 37 books”

Ann James Massey (b.1951, USA) is, among others, a member of The Society of Women Artists UK, American Artists Professional League (Fellow Maxima Cum Laude), Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, Colored Pencil Society of America (Charter and Signature Member); United Kingdom Coloured Pencil Society (Charter and Silver Member, President/Honorary President 2004 to 2010) and Mensa. Massey owned and operated The Montwood Gallery in El Paso, TX from 1974 to 1978 and Massey Fine Arts in Santa Teresa, NM from 1992 to 1994. Her studio is currently based in Paris, France.

Over the years, Donelli has developed a distinctive painting style most appropriately characterized as Contemporary Realism. To this end, he blends the techniques of the old world masters line, form, edge and value with the brushstrokes, vibrating colors and light effects of the Impressionists. However, the distinctive contemporary nature of Donelli's unique style is in his compositions and paint application.

The ideas for his compositions come largely from photographs and memorabilia collected while traveling around the world as a research scientist. Donelli sets up the subject matter for his paintings to tell a story. Typically, he emphasizes the main point by using a palette of earth colors for most of the painting with a punch of bright color, such as red to attract the viewer's attention. Thick paint application, detail and value contrast are also used to attract the viewer to the center of interest. He layers color upon color allowing each layer to show through to increase the light, luminosity and emotional intensity of his work.

For the past 20 years, Donelli has been a full-time artist and teacher in Santa Fe, NM. Recently, he has been in 16 museum shows across the USA (twice in the “Contemporary American Realism” show at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in 2008 and 2010) and has shown his work in galleries nationally (NY, CA, AZ, TX, CT, and NM). His four drawing and painting video courses on “Udemy” have more than 125,000 subscribers, and his drawing manual loosely based on the “Reilly” technique is still available on “Lulu” and at Artisan stores.

Denise Henley is an award-winning artist residing in the U.S. It would be fair to say that she has been creating art most of her life but painting professionally since 1998. Featured in several group and solo exhibitions Denise has been the recipient of various awards and recognitions and her works are collected both nationally and internationally. A constituent of realism, she is continually perfecting her drawing skills, believing it to be the backbone of figure painting.

Henley's current work focuses on the simplification of forms and a combination of realism and abstract marks. To this end, she will reach for a painting knife as a way of eliminating fussy details that can make for a banal work of art. For her, the medium or style is inconsequential; the important thing is that a goal is realized. Denise is intoxicated with the human figure and excited to portray it as she sees it—simply beautiful.

"Too much reality in a portrait is always a disappointment to the imaginative soul. We love suggestion and not hard facts." - John F. Carlson