Louise Aiken

My dad, John Bondrager, was an artist and encouraged us to express ourselves with paint as we were growing up. My mom was an artist too, in her exquisite gardens. My other childhood influence was my dad’s good friend, Louis Boekhout. Life and a wonderful family happened, which kept me away from my paints, but I started again around 2000. At that time, I did a few animal portraits in oils. Since joining AHA in 2015, I’ve studied with Gail Descoures and Shernya Vininsky and taken weekend workshops with Claudia McCabe and Valerie Kent. I’ve also done some single-day workshops with Cork Winters and Mark Zimmerl. When doing detailed work, I like to use oils; abstracts are typically in acrylics and I’m starting to explore watercolours. But no matter which medium I’m using, my goal is to express the emotion or feeling of the subject.