My first fascination and gratification of the art process originates from a ringside seat at a humble kitchen table watching my father draw in pencil. My father, John Hudetz, who studied art, aspired to becoming a professional artist in his early youth. Studying plein aire, he acquired a mentor, an Austrian immigrant and notable Chicagoan Artist named Andrew Dobos. Above the kitchen table where our first drawing lessons ensued,  hung a Dobos original plein aire painting  in vibrant Fall colors; a wedding gift to my parents. No longer an aspiring painter, Dad pursued a career in the printing industry that put food on the table and paid the bills.

However, the love of creating art certainly never left him. Often, an after-dinner audience of three or four of my siblings, gathered around him to watch his magical pencil perform. The opening act was always the ritualistic sharpening of the pencil and the arrangement of the paper and the subject model.  It was the magic of optical illusions appearing before our very eyes that captivated our attention. Willingly, we took turns sitting for our portrait to be drawn with the only downside being that the model, sitting perfectly still, was left out of  act two, the actual drawing process. Springboarding from a completed portrait, our lessons would be an explanation of drawing principles such as spatial relationships, perspective, light, shading, and  more.

Since those early days, much has happened. Together my husband and I raised a family of three wonderful kids, I pursued careers and held jobs in both art education, and in the field of health. As a grandmother, with our families living out of state, I now immerse myself in drawing and painting. I welcome family visits over painting any day. However, I am happy to spend an abundance of time at the easel.

It is for others like you reading this that I now paint and create. I offer portraits, landscapes, cloudscapes, and waterscapes as my subjects. I offer original paintings for sale, prints, and notecards. My focus and intention is to capture the light that shines on a subject, and the light from within a subject that shines. That inner light not only is found emanating from the soul and spirit of individual, but also from the inner light of brief moments in time.  Moments that most refer to as good memories subconsciously hold a feeling of light and spirit that I wish to convey in my paintings.