Lisa McGraham

I am a pencil artist with a passion for taking a blank piece of paper and bringing it to life almost as if the picture was always there in the paper but I bring it out for everyone to see. I hope to share with you my art as it intersects with everyday life. I love trying to capture that inner spirit of a person or the underlying feeling of a scene in my art. The unseen in a picture makes it come alive and touches something within me and my goal is to let you, the viewer, feel as if you can sense that too. I started drawing around 5 years old when my cousin decided to teach me to draw a coffee cup and I haven’t stopped since of course now I draw more than coffee cups. I’ve always dabbled in portraits but took a break in that area for a few years and focused on Japanese Anime where I merged my realism portrait style and the Japanese Anime together where I learned a lot about shading and detail. My subject matter can be greatly diversified. Last year I did a commissioned portrait for Edward Pietz the founder of the Red Lion Hotels which is now in the Park Tower Plaza in Vancouver WA. I also did a portrait for actress Ayanna Berkshire who played “Cora” in the movie Twilight, she also had a role in the Harrison Ford & Brandon Frazier film Extraordinaire Measures and played a few roles in the TV show Leverage. I have two loves that are very different which are, drawing and shockingly web design. By day I am the lead website designer for a Vancouver WA advertising company and by night I’m a traditional pencil artist. If I’m not drawing, I’m designing websites.