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Aileen Blankinship Fletcher   

    I was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up with museums, government agencies, and children's classes at the Corcoran School of Art. Summers were spent exploring my grandparent's farm,  close to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Lynchburg, Virginia. In school, I often wished for more art and less arithmetic. By junior high, I learned to love music and singing and in high school history, English, and everything, except for math. I chose my mother's college and discovered design and art history. My freshman year, I met my husband, Peter. Just a few days before I was 20, I was married. I was now a married art major at a different college with a graduate student husband whose field was, of all things, mathematics.

     We both acquired degrees and moved to Virginia where I became a professor's wife, a painter and printmaker, a graduate student and most important, a mother. Sometimes, late at night, I'd sneak out to my backyard studio to paint. The kids would sneak out there too. One day they borrowed my orange acrylic and painted the sidewalk and the back seat of my car. After the children were in school, I became a part time art instructor at New River Community College.

    Once, I went shopping for a camera and became so confused that I decided to take a photography class. That class was the beginning of my love for photography. I have explored many different types of photography, from portraits and commercial types of work to fine art photography. I was able to combine my interests in painting and photography by painting on the photographs.

     Until the middle of May 2011, I taught full time at New River Community College. Classes in photography, painting, drawing and art appreciation kept me really busy.  I had to pursue photography and painting during the summer. Today, I have retired from my job and have more time for my second career. I have switched from being a film photographer to being primarily a digital photographer, complete with a computer and Photoshop.  To print my large images on canvas, I rely on a company in Raleigh, NC, called Canvas on Demand.  Their work is excellent.  They can print your special photos too.

http://www.Canvasondemand.com

I paint on the canvas with transparent oil paint.  I seldom use a brush but rely on cotton and tiny, home-made Q-Tips to apply the paint.  This painting technique mixes painting and photography so well that people often ask me, “Is it a photo or a Painting?” 

   I am looking forward to doing a bit more of my own printing in the future, trying out image transfers and other digital printing techniques. 

     Because I believe that art is important. I try to serve in art organizations. I have been Vice President and Secretary of the Blacksburg Regional Art Association and Secretary for the Board of the Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley.    I belong to Round the Mountain and can schedule a studio visit for you if you wish.  Some of my work can be seen at Heartwood, Abingdon, Va.  I was also a member of Gallery 108 in Roanoke, Va until it closed in December 2012. 

http://www.roundthemountain.org

http://www.heartwoodvirginia.org/

New River Community College   

http://nr.edu

      I teach one class at New River Community College.  It is Pht 164, Introduction to Digital Photography.  It is taught at the NRCC Mall site in Christiansburg, Va.  in a brand new state of the art lab.