About Louise ~ Ive been surrounded by the fine arts since growing up in Oakland, California during the 1940's and 50's. My Mother was an accomplished piano teacher and played all the classics and popular music too. My Grandfather, Walter Whipple, had been a silent screen actor starring in "Hell"s Hinges" 1915) with William S. Hart. My twin sister liked to make boats of wood (She became a renouned wood carver with BEST OF MISSOURI HANDS:( Kathy Ruth Neal) For myself, I have always loved to paint. As a teenager, I studied oil with the California artist Ramona Valencia (Mona Froyland) and also drawing classes with Howard Brodie a ww2 artist correspondent---but as time went on, I experimented with water colors and then acrylic paints. Today, I continue using gouache paints on tin. Gouache can be described as similar to water colors except that they are opaque. I feel a strong connection with the Latino community. I grew up in Decoto (now Union City) a Mexican community in California. The majority of my paintings are of scenes of Mexican Life and Latino men and woman in profile, using colors of the southwest. We travel every year to southern Mexico where my husband has family. I especially enjoy painting the Huichol Indians who come down from the mountains to sell their unique beaded artwork. They are a very religious people and are the only ones to still wear their original dress. I gather information for my new paintings and returning to my studio in kansas I create new artwork.
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Huichol Indian mother and Child |
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