About the Author
Ann Baldwin is an internationally known mixed-
media artist and workshop teacher. Her work has
been exhibited in more than ISO solo and group
shows throughout the United States. She is repre-
sented by several galleries and her work appears
regularly on the sets of primetime television shows
and in movies. Articles about her have been pub-
lished in magazines in the United States. Canada.
and Australia. She was born and educated in Britain,
where she taught English and drama to high school
students for many years. In 1990 she immigrated
with her husband to the San Francisco Bay Area,
where she maintains a studio in her home on the
edge of Napa Valley. She likes to spend long sum-
mers with her family in the UK and France. She
has two daughters and five grandchildren. Besides
painting. her interests are photography, gardening,
walking, reading, and watching wildlife.Acknowledgments
Ever since I was eight years old I have wanted to write
a book, although what I really had in mind was a
novel. In fact. in my early twenties I wrote a couple
of those, which remained safely locked away in
my filing cabinet for many yearsl I want to thank
Mary Ann Hall, my editor, for contacting me out
of the blue to write this book and encouraging me
to believe I could do it when the project at times
seemed overwhelming. Just to make life harder, I also
undertook to shoot all the photographs. My thanks
are owed, therefore, to David Martinell for his
support and evaluation along the way.
As a self-taught artist who turned to painting rela-
tively late in life, I know how important certain fellow
artists have been in encouraging me to pursue my
passion: Merrill Mack, who took me to the jungles
of Mexico to teach a workshop; Beryl Miller, Collin
Murphy, and Cathy Coe, whose creativity has fed
my own; Sandi Miot, who held regular critiques in
her studio and sowed the seeds of many projects;
Mary Black, who introduced me to the sensuality
of encaustic painting; Thea Schrack, whose photog-
raphy inspired me to become a photographer myself;
and Katrina Wagner, whose no-holds-barred evalua-
tions took me kicking and screaming to the next level.
In recent years my association with Art & Soul
Retreats (www.artandsoulretreat.com) has given me
the opportunity to teach workshops, where I have
144 I CREATIVE PA I N T W ORKSHOP
met hundreds of aspiring and accomplished artists
from the United States and beyond. Thank you,
Glenny Densem-Moir and Cindy O'Leary, for orga-
nizing these incredible events. Thanks, too, to Vince
Fazio of the Sedona Art Center for the opportunity
to spend time in such a spiritual place and to teach
art to talented students and teachers from across
the world.
There is one small group of women who have helped
me indirectly to complete this book: the ladies of the
Hiddenbrooke Book Club, who have provided light-
hearted relief from the rigorous hours spent alone in
front of my computer.
Not least, lowe a debt of gratitude to my family: to
my daughters, Helen and Alexa, who have endured
my obsessive enthusiasm for things artistic and who
hang my work in their homes for all to see; and to my
mother and brother, whose pride in my achievements
has been loudly and frequently spoken.
Finally to my husband, Mike, lowe boundless
gratitude. I could not wish for a more dedicated and
utterly selfless supporter. Despite the demands of his
own career in scientific research, he has always been
there to encourage my efforts, to frame, schlep, ship,
and hang my paintings, to remodel my studiO, build
my booth at art festivals, and to accompany me to
exhibition openings. How did I get to be so lucky?