Michelle Howe, featured artist of the week, has combined her love of fine painting with wood
burning to create a unique artwork.
Howe grew up painting but decided she did not want to spend her life as a “starving artist” so she worked for 30 years as a hairstylist in Indiana. When she and her husband decided to retire, they headed South to Tennessee and she returned to her first love of painting. An award-winning artist, she paints detailed landscapes and portraits of movie stars plus commissioned paintings.
A few years ago, her daughter gave Howe a wood burning kit for her birthday. She started playing around with the tool and soon found herself “hooked” and learned she could combine the wood burning with her paintings to create unusual detailed artworks on wood.
Recently, she has teamed up with Photographer Sam Bass to take his images and transform them into a wood-burned painting. Howe is extremely happy with her new life as a full-time artist and believes in “paying it forward” byteaching classes in wood burning both at Clinch Mountain Arts & Crafts and at the JamesBen Studio in Greeneville, Tennessee.
Howe will at Clinch Mountain Arts & Crafts on Thursday, March 31, from noon to 3 p.m., demonstrating the art of wood burning. She says anyone can be a wood burning artist. “If you can color, you can do wood burning,” Howe says.