Mary Kaser

If you are reading this then you must have been interested in one of my paintings. Or you are just curious of who I am. Well, this is me.
I was born in the state of Oregon, raised in CA. Even though I have always had an interest in art I really never had any formal training on art until later in my life. I did the usual arts and crafts in school and even dabbled with drawing pictures as a teenager, nothing was ever really good enough to even show to my Parent.
Once in high school art took control over me again. I loved it couldn’t get enough of it. But we never really stayed with any one thing. My best pictures though my teacher kept and wouldn’t let me have them back and that always hurt me a great deal.
Then when I got married I didn’t have time for art as I was busy doing things a housewife did and raising a family. I gave birth to three children and raised three others. So I really didn’t have time to do much of anything. My mother however tried to get me interested in painting with acrylics but, I just could never quite get the hang of painting with them but I sure tried. It was like I couldn’t make anything look real. I watched Bob Ross on TV and some other guy that was good at painting but did it allot like Bob Ross. I can’t remember who it was that always had a happy little tree or a happy little house but my stuff looked more like the sad mess of a tree and what a dump of a house. So I put it all on the back burner besides it was really hard to find time to paint with all the interruptions from the kids or the hubby and come back and find my paints, brushes, and everything else was dried. Ugh,
So then after all my children left home and I had nothing to do, someone asked me to go to art class with them. An art class being taught by a local artist in one of our strip malls. I thought why not and bought stuff to go and boy did I fall in love with oil painting. I mean I really fell for it like nothing else ever. I just couldn’t get enough. I started my usual stuff when something caught my attention and I wanted to learn about it. I went to the library and I think I have borrowed every book they have on oil painting at least at the very, very least 4 times. We get allot of books at the library. I bought books watched videos and tried everything I could find. I was like a sponge absorbing it all.
Within a couple of months or so of art class, one day a week, I had to have back surgery. I think I only missed a couple of weeks or so of art class and I was back at it. Art was all that kept my mind occupied instead of thinking of the pain I was in. Shortly after that my art teacher decided to go to Africa and work so we were told to find ourselves a new teacher.
There weren’t very many teachers that had seats for students. Even the local college was totally full. So there wasn’t much I could do but wait for a teacher to have space. Finally I decided to do what I had been doing but this time I did it on my own. I read everything I could get my hands on to learn different techniques on oil painting.
Finally there was a class that I could go to, but that was after two years of searching and teaching myself. They always say if you really want to learn you’ll find a way. The problem with self teaching is you really don’t know if you are teaching yourself the correct way unless someone tells you so. OR if everything sells really well. Well, needless to say, I didn’t get it all right but some of it I did very well. That is a good thing.
Anyway, I found a teacher and it was long after I got with her she decided to retire because of things going on in her personal life and the need to move out of the area. So once again I found my self teacher free. This time however, I was lucky and found a teacher right away well, within three or four months., That was a good thing, in the meantime though I was back to reading books and watching videos.
The new teacher was really very nice but she wasn’t used to teaching and I really think she had pretty much lost the desire to teach it wasn’t long until I moved to another teacher. Another local artist that does very well. Wow was I surprised at how she worked with us. I mean she comes right up and says, let me show you how to do this correctly or lets discuss a better way to do this or that. She also has us as a group do things as an experiment. Like when we painted a portrait in black and white then turned right around and layered glazes over the paintings to make them colored. Low and behold that is how I did Reba. That was my very first project in her class. I thought it was awesome.
She is always trying to find something new for us, and she’s one to not turn something down because it is difficult or new to us. She’s right there learning with us and if something doesn’t work and we have to start over on a project, she does it right along with us and she tries things out at home to make sure we have it right.
She is totally awesome and I really like her for my art teacher. She’s not much older than me but boy does she have a talent.
I am still taking classes once a week and working and drawing on stuff all the time. I don’t think I will ever get to the point where I don’t want to ever pick up a brush again. To me painting is a total passion and I love it dearly. Sometimes when I am painting I get so lost in it and my music that I don’t find myself till daybreak.
Put my music on and give me my paint brushes and paint a canvas or masonite board and I am lost to the world. If I could turn the phones off during that time, you would be lucky to see me for days.
Anyway, this is about me. Not the most fascinating story in the shoebox but it is my story.
I love to paint portraits, animals, landscape, seascapes, trains, flowers, and I am always looking for a challenge.
Well, that’s it and I don’t know what else to say so, I guess I’ll say thanks for looking at my work and reading my bio. I hope that you like the stuff I do and enjoy looking at it. As far as my drawings go I have just recently started learning how to draw so, please don’t judge my drawings to harshly.

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