Biography:
I believe that all children start out artistic, but by high school I found myself no longer inspired by my own art. I was, by then, a math and science oriented teen who went on to a career in Industrial Engineering. An underlying interest in art resurfaced about ten years ago and was generously fed with encouragement and lessons. It really began to thrive when a friend and I made a pact to “put thousands of miles on our brushes.”
Artist’s Statement:
I have recently fallen in love with the combined effects of watercolor and ink, but not in the traditional style of sketching and cross-hatching with the ink. I call my new style “Serendipity” because I use the ink to follow all of the odd, planned, unplanned and even outrageous places that the watercolors happen to have mixed and flowed. Hill Country landscapes, waterscapes, food, beer steins, wildflowers and animals are all grist for my mill… For a funny time lapse video of this art process go to Nan Henke-Texas Hill Country Art on Facebook.
I love to paint Texas topics out of my own ranch life, but also paint commissions from client’s photographs. I lean in the direction of simplified realism and whimsy with watercolor and sometimes drift toward mild abstraction when I work with acrylics. I create art from baseball-card-sized to a 4 x 5 foot canvas. My art signature includes a tiny “Rocking O” which, after over 100 years, my family no longer uses as a cattle brand.
Honors and Awards:
-Featured Artist for Fredericksburg’s 2016 Octoberfest with my watercolor, “Tuba Band Beer Stein”.
-My painting “Bluebonnets and Hay” was on the cover of the 2015 Fredericksburg Art Guide.
-3 pieces in the 2012 “Wisconsin Confidential” show at the John Michael Kohler Art Center Museum.
Where to find my art:
I am represented at the Fredericksburg Art Guild plus Urban Herbal Gallery & Sculpture Garden in Fredericksburg, and at Intermezzo Gallery's online shop. I teach watercolor workshops at the Fredericksburg Art Guild. I am also a member of Die Kunstler von Fredericksburg (The Artists of Fredericksburg).