By Pam Bunch
Special to the 830 Times
Louise C. Murphy of Fredericksburg is the feature artist for the May 5 First Friday Art Walk at Lee-Bunch Studio Gallery, located at 100 W. Greenwood.
Murphy’s artist reception will be held during the art walk hours from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Since Murphy’s early childhood, one of her aunts began to encourage her artistically, which helped her to develop her God-given talent with drawing, painting, and working in clay. Upon graduating from the University of North Texas with a Fine Arts degree, she married and moved to Ontario, Canada where Murphy continued to work in clay and honed her drawing skills. During her years of raising a family in Midland, she took watercolor classes and began to teach art privately to children of all ages.
Moving to the Texas Hill County in 1999, Murphy began a life long dream of painting regularly and getting back into her oils. The Hill Country beauty spurred Murphy to learn about plein air painting for everywhere she turned there was another beautiful scene to paint. The challenge of capturing the lights and shadows in each new scenic view inspires Murphy even today to keep painting her God’s Great Glory in this land He has given us to use. Murphy has studied under John Budicin, C. S. Talley, Ian Roberts, Ron Rencher, Keving Macpherson, Zhuaming Wu and for her figures and portraits Carolyn Anderson.
“I have come to love painting outdoors, which has opened my eyes to the complexity and beauty of God’s creation,” Murphy said.
Murphy returned to teaching privately for a few years so that she could teach a second generation, her grandchildren and other young students of Fredericksburg. Again, Murphy has retired from teaching and is concentrating on perfecting her own art.
This past year, she was chosen to create the painting for the Fredericksburg Food and Wine Festival’s 2022 poster that was exhibited and sold during that festival.
She is currently looking forward to a painting trip to the Grand Teton National Parks sometime this summer. She has had the fantastic opportunity to paint Provence in 2014 and in the following years traveled and painted in Italy and England. In 2017 and again in 2021, Louise won the Artist Choice Award at the Die Kunstler Von Fredericksburg Fine Art Show. She is a member of Oil Painters of America, The Outdoor Painters Society and is locally active and past President of Die Kunstler Von Fredericksburg, where she exhibits her work in their annual shows and sales.
The Lee-Bunch Studio Gallery’s First Friday Art Walk is a free public event for anyone wanting to experience fine original art, great wine, hors d’oeuvres and desserts. Murphy is planning on welcoming all of you to her opening show, which will hang throughout the month of May, Monday through Friday, at the gallery.
For more information on the art walk, or the regular weekly hours at Lee-Bunch, call 830-774-3456.
