As a young child living in Montreal, I was making patterns with a brush and water on the backyard balcony. When the pattern disappeared with evaporation, I would start over and over trying to capture the whole picture before it disappeared. I developed tenacity, perseverance and rapidity during that time. I am convinced, these qualities helped me to create one watercolor a day during the entire year of 2014. Since then, my style has developed into abstract figurative painting using acrylic, mixed media, and sometimes oil. Today, I feel honored to paint and teach art every week and to show my work at Alameda Artworks in San Jose, California. I like to treasure the ordinary activities in my painting, found the beauty in ordinary people. A lot of people asked me why I don’t paint faces in most of my paintings. My definition of portraiture is to capture the essence of each individual without rendering the actual details of their face. When I paint a person, I want to capture their intimity and movement in my piece. Also, I let the viewer picture themselves or a beloved one in the painting. www.Viefineart.com Syl-vie Levesque Oil, Acrylic and Watercolor artist