ROI Learning Services
624 Enid Avenue
Kettering, Ohio 45429

Sheila is an artist who works with state-of-the-art digital computers to transform new and old photographs into exciting visual compositions that evoke many moods and meanings.

Sheila received a Fine Arts degree from Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, and a Liberal Arts degree from Wright State University. After being certified as a Licensed Practical Nurse by the Princeton Medical Center (New Jersey) she worked for many years in the medical profession, first as a pediatric nurse and later as Community Relations officer for a Cincinnati-based medical research company. In recent years she has returned to her artistic roots and extended her skills with traditional media using a new and exciting means of creative expression that combines photography, fine art, and the latest digital computer technology.

Sheila’s "studio" is a small, sun-lit office equipped with a powerful personal computer and surrounded by electronic tools for capturing, editing, creating, extending, and printing high resolution color images. The process begins with photography. Sheila and her husband, Verne, take pictures of people and objects that she would like to feature in her work. She then combines these subjects with images from a library of pictures that she and Verne have taken over the years - pictures with many varied shapes, textures, and backgrounds that can be integrated with the new subjects and themes.

Just as she once used paint, palette, and canvas, Sheila now applies electronic tools to arrange the elements into provocative compositions. She may color elements that were originally black and white, treat portions of the image to change their complexion or mood, or use an electronic tablet to sketch or paint in new elements. The stylus on Sheila’s tablet can be set up to simulate a paint brush, a pastel crayon, a charcoal pencil, a caligraphic pen, or even an airbrush with adjustable nozzle!

Sheila’s finished compositions range from the ethereal mysticism of a Maxfield Parish landscape 590 450 ("Copenhagen," "Rainbow’s End") to the endearing surrealism of an Anne Geddes photograph ("Bathtime," "Day Lilly," "Tiger’s Woods"). She also accepts commissions to transform family snapshots into artistic heirlooms.

Sheila has been a member of the Town & Country Fine Art Gallery in Kettering, Ohio.