‘Christina on the Beach’

‘Christina on the Beach’, 2024

Brook

Watercolor on Cold Press Paper – 22″ x 30″

This painting is of my dear niece, who I helped raise and consider her like a daughter. She was in a park on the beach of a lake with a friend in the upper peninsula during summer. The light was just right when I snapped a digital photo for my vast reference files. The image is done in pure watercolors straight from the tube which accounts for the intensity of the painting’s color scheme.

Brook Powell is an experienced watercolor artist inspired by the wondrous nature of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Creating art since 1985, Brook has established a vast collection of abstract and expressionist watercolor paintings. He graduated from Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan with a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design and a minor in History. Brook feels most connected to his creativity when he is engaging with his community and surrounded by Marquette’s lush forests, streams, and the great Lake Superior.

Brook recognizes the challenges of persevering along a creative path. Diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 1992, the pressure of college was brutal, and it was hard to keep up with other students because of delusions, even while medicated. As he persists, he is motivated by master Zoltan Szabo’s words “It has to be an inner drive, or you should be doing something else.”