Char Fitzpatrick

Watercolor Instructor

Char grew up in the Pacific Northwest and has loved to draw since grade school. She had marvelously influential art classes in high school where she realized painting and drawing were the things for her. She drove an old VW van with the passenger seat ripped out and used it as a studio on wheels to prowl around the Salem countryside. Char loved those luscious scenes of farm houses, dusk skies, and silhouetted birch trees, trains on the valley floor, blackened acres of burned fields, later plowed and dusted with white lime. While other kids spent their time socializing after school, Char was hiking around the countryside with her paint set looking for dilapidated farm machinery or rows of blooming orchards to capture on paper.

In the early 1970’s, Char went to Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, long before it was well-known, long before much of anyone traveled abroad. She was surrounded by West of Scotland kids, quite talented kids, and worked every day, all day, in the studio. It left an indelible mark on her, not only learning to paint but learning that painting is a lifestyle. Char always has a studio with a comfy chair and a piece of carpeting, where all the toys of work wait for her to continue a painting, start a new piece, or experiment without constraints.