Prismapainter

Maria Hathaway (a.k.a Ria) is a self taught artist. She specializes in colored pencil and watercolor but also enjoys working with oils and acrylics.

Her work is vibrant with color and emotion. She loves doing portraits and is passionate about the portrayal of emotion and life experience through her work. Her artwork shows who we are as humans. It explores the passion, the sadness, the fear, and hope that make us who we are. So many beautiful people walk among us, entirely unnoticed or forgotten. She brings attention to the invisible, the lonely, the joyful, and the heroic. She exhibits the beauty that exists in each of us.

When Maria creates a piece using Prismacolor she uses a very labor intensive layering technique. She starts with a basic sketch of what she’s going to draw. Then she begins adding layer after layer of color, blending and shading as she goes. She often adds the darkest shadows early on and slowly works her way toward highlights of light using a white pencil in the end.

If a large area of one color is required, such as blue for a clear blue sky, she often uses a turpenoid wash in order to achieve a smooth solid color without excessive effort.

Maria’s art is an ever changing process of growth and improvement. It is liquid. Nothing is permanent and every time she creates a piece she learns something new and develops new methods and techniques. She is open to anything as long as the end result is vibrant in color and full of detail.

Maria often feels as though her paintings paint themselves. A character or subject in a painting has something to say and she is merely an instrument through which it is enabled to exist and therefore speak.

Maria is not influenced by any artist -contemporary or historical. She is quite simply influenced by the world that she observes around her. She is fascinated by life itself which she considers to be the greatest work of art that has ever and will ever be achieved. “I can only hope to dimly reflect the beauty of creation. I believe however that humanity has devine potential, unending and unfathomable. We have only as yet scratched the surface of that which we can and will become.” -Maria Hathaway

Maria is most content when she is with her family. She is influenced greatly by their unique and caring personalities. She has seen through them what it is to be truly good, and happy. She sees the importance of love and truth and she shares this perspective through her art.