Rebecca Jo Morales facts for kids
Rebecca Jo Morales (born in 1962) is an American artist. She was born in Torrance, California. Rebecca studied art at several famous schools, including the California Institute of the Arts and the Otis College of Art and Design. She graduated from Otis in 1985. Before becoming a full-time artist, she worked as an illustrator for biology (drawing plants and animals) and as someone who helps fix old paper artworks. Today, she lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Rebecca Morales: Her Art and Career
Rebecca Morales is known for her unique drawings. She often focuses on subjects from nature, like plants, grasses, lichens, mosses, and fungi. Sometimes, her drawings even show flower-like spores growing.
Her art often combines these natural elements with other interesting images. These can be twisted braids of air or strange knitted objects. Rebecca finds inspiration for her botanical drawings from real places. She uses samples and photographs from forests in California, the Pacific Northwest, Vermont, and Maine. She also uses other materials she finds and collects herself.
What Makes Her Art Special?
Rebecca Morales's artwork has a special look, almost like old photographs. She uses different art materials together, such as watercolor, gouache (a type of opaque watercolor), pastel, and ink. She mixes them in a way that makes light look soft and flowing. Her art can make you think of very old photos called daguerreotypes, which were known for capturing a lot of detail.
Her paintings are not always about real objects. They are often "abstractions," meaning they show ideas or feelings rather than exact copies of things. These artworks are carefully made and can make your imagination go wild. Even though they are abstract, they often feel calm and peaceful.
Where to See Her Art: Public Collections
Rebecca Morales's artwork is displayed in several important art museums and collections. These include the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.
One of her famous works is a painting called Roadrunner, made in 1996. You can see it at the Honolulu Museum of Art. This painting shows how she uses gouache and watercolor on vellum (a special type of thin, smooth material). It also highlights her ability to make paintings look almost like photographs, and how she uses vellum to create a sculptural effect in her art.
