About the Artist

Kirstin McPherson is an artist drawing from both the classical realist tradition and the Urban Sketchers movement. She has a PhD in philosophy (and is married to a philosopher) and, like philosophy, she sees art as a contemplative endeavor, one that attunes the artist to the beauty and spiritual significance of reality. Because Kirstin primarily enjoys art as a practice of seeing and appreciating, she finds both classical realism and watercolor sketching to be important complementary practices. Classical realism requires deep and sensitive attention to the object of the artwork and often takes many hours to complete. Sketching, however, encourages quick documentation of one’s experiences of the world, giving space to experiment and to embrace imperfection. Kirstin especially enjoys teaching these two modes of art to others in combination with philosophical discussions on the nature of beauty and art, with the conviction that the practice of art and reflection upon it deeply enriches our experience of life. Her greatest artistic influences are the Impressionist and especially Post-Impressionist oil painters of the nineteenth century and the British watercolorists, such as John Ruskin, from the same time period. Like many of these painters, she is drawn to landscapes and people in their environments. Kirstin has been largely self-taught, but she had the privilege of studying classical realism with Ali Ghassan at the REAL Academy of Art for six months while her family temporarily lived in Denver, and she is currently studying with Juliette Aristides in the Aristides Atelier. She resides in Gainesville, FL with her husband and four children.