Julie Byrne – UnderCover

Description

Artist Statement

Nature is the focus of my work. It is a world filled with the flowering plants and vegetation, inspired by backyard gardens, and the public spaces of Washington DC.
I initially approach each drawing as a portrait.. It has been many years since I first discovered that I enjoyed drawing the details of plants so much, that often the plant did not survive my scrutiny or the time it took for me to make a drawing. And so I began to use photography to capture impressions of my subjects. My photographs became my sketches of ideas, colors and the structure for the drawing. And now it remains a combination of the two that forms the decisions I make for each drawing.
Colored pencil is my medium of choice for the majority of my drawings. It offers both the precision I crave and portability when it is needed. For many years it was the easiest medium for me to use when I was traveling more than I was staying at home as I juggled a career of working on board passenger trains with my artwork. Using colored pencils offered a way to stop and start a drawing during those years. Carrying my drawings during those early Amtrak years, so that I could work on them on a layover did not last long. It did however lay the groundwork for the process that I began, in layering colors to create a highly colored opaque surface. Though my drawings lean toward the botanical and are realistic in their depictions, it is the abstraction within each of the subjects that continues to challenge me for the next drawing. And thanks to those countless road trips, I had the delight to be able to visit museums, cities and gardens I could only have imagined .
Today I continue to use colored pencils in most of my drawings, in a body of work that includes other media but remains essentially ‘Paper and Pencil’
Julie Byrne
March 31, 2023