Kathi Pearson Dunn has been an artist of all sorts all of her life. Growing up in Colorado, art was always among her favorite school subjects. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising Design with an emphasis on graphic design. For 15 years she was a professional potter in Colorado and New Mexico before returning to graphic design. In 1985 Kathi established a regional full-service advertising/design firm which grew into a nationally acclaimed success. During those 36 years, Kathi garnered hundreds of awards for attention-grabbing book cover designs while serving major publishing houses and bestselling authors. Along each career path, she has never veered from her love of design, illustration and painting, which are now all infused in her pastel paintings. 

 

“I’d always been attracted to pastel paintings in museums and galleries, without ever understanding the complexity and wonder of the process. How incredible it is to work with raw pigment as the masters did long ago! I now see the natural world around me as a painting waiting to be born and it is my joy to reinterpret that through my art. I use a variety of techniques including underpainting with acrylic, watercolor or alcohol wash and then I build layers of pastel from there, transforming colors and shapes into my own vision.”

 

Kathi paints from her home in Hayward Wisconsin and in her Tubac Arizona studio