Debbie is a self taught oil painter who has been painting for more than four decades. Drawing and painting are the only things she did with her spare time throughout high school and college. While raising and homeschooling 4 children she carved a minimum of one hour out of every day to paint and she always carried a sketchbook. After her children were grown, Debbie started painting full time and has never looked back.
She is inspired by the natural beauty of the surroundings where she lives; splitting her time between the San Juan Islands in Washington, the gulf coast of Florida and the south of France, and will never tire of painting the sea. Captured movement plays a vital role in her work as she strives to freeze a moment in time and provide something deeply personal to the viewer. Debbie’s paintings rarely have a horizon line so that the viewer is immersed in the up close details of our surroundings.
Her paintings have been in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the country. Her work has been published in Sea History magazine (summer, 2025), on the cover of the American Society of Marine Artists (summer 2022), in Southwest Art magazine (Dec. 2017) and Northlight Books, Strokes of Genius, Best of Drawing. Her work may be found in the permanent collection of hospitals and corporations across the US, most notably at Google in Seattle.
From mid May to October, Debbie works at her studio at Friday Harbor Atelier in Friday Harbor, WA. She spends her time from mid November to April working in her home studio in New Port Richey, FL; and spends the spring and fall months painting and drawing in the south of France.