Tricia Courtney uses a palette knife and “an extreme amount of paint” for rich color and bold strokes to create her artwork in oils. Her approach to other mediums yields equally intriguing results. She alternates between oils, recycled metal assemblage, vibrant acrylic drip paintings and wooden angels.  Tricia has also created an entire world of fanciful, whimsical children’s characters – “The Land of the Buzzlewics” and the “Zoppyzeeps”.  The result of these fun characters has been a book, puzzles, coloring books, trading cards and prints.

 

Tricia, past director of the Rose Gallery of Fine Arts in Joplin, earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from Missouri State University in Springfield. She finds that the same abilities that sustained her through 27 years as a newspaper graphic artist for the Joplin Globe — working rapidly, thinking quickly, designing on a moment’s notice — continue to fuel her creative style. As she says, “Inspiration comes from everything that surrounds me, and those years gave me the edge to take chances, to be spontaneous.”.