Cover Artist Toni Lance: For the Love of Birds
Toni writes, "I have been a permanent resident on St Croix for 30 years, painting and looking after birds. Originally growing up in Laguna Beach, California, I had a tremendous love of birds and photography from an early age. I was fortunate enough to be given a scholarship for college in that area from the Laguna Festival of Arts. For two years, at Humboldt State, I studied Photography and Wildlife Management. I was good at drawing and painting and the photography equipment was expensive, so I spent the next two years at Long Beach State studying Biomedical Illustration. That is really where I had my training for the detail and rendering. There I was being trained to paint human subjects and worked often with cadavers, but my passion was entirely birds and animal subjects.
After college I spent the next few years painting detailed watercolors of birds, learned taxidermy and checked out stuffed birds from natural history museums. My paintings showed every detail of the feathers and my watercolors were very tight.
In 1980, I came to visit St Croix and like many others, I loved it and moved here. Continuing to paint birds, my subjects also became the local architecture, people and flora. I was honored to be asked by the British Philatelic Bureau in 1986 to paint two series of postage stamps. The History of Rum Making for the BVI's and Birds of Prey for St. Vincent. Also during this time, I traveled a bit and painted watercolors of Africa, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Costa Rica.
Having shown my art in the Virgin Islands, California, New York, Florida and Arizona, I now primarily have an annual one woman show at the Walsh Metal Works Gallery. I was thrilled to have recently been a featured artist in the Spring issue of American Artist Watercolor magazine this year. I am presently making a stab at illustrating and writing a book. On birds of course!"
We're thrilled with Toni's two covers for August and September and grateful for her story, "Oh, To Be a Pelican!".
