Julia will be discussing "art as a business"... "the road I've taken to move from what had been a hobby to that which is a source of livelihood".

About the guest speaker: "I first began painting in 1980, having been fascinated by portraiture.  I would look at portraits and say to myself 'I can do that'. I sought out a teacher and was fortunate to come under the tutelage of master portraitist Bob Gerbracht.  Bob’s instruction was in pastel, a medium that I immediately embraced for its vibrancy and spontaneity. Continuing to work in a representational style, I found that colour, for its own sake, had the ability to influence the power and impact of a painting. In 1995 I was working on a painting of giraffes, whose astonishing shapes and contours seemed to lend themselves to an outrageous approach.  I chose to introduce colour totally outside the normal range,…