Catherine M. Palmer is an artist from New Haven, Vermont where she lives surrounded by her favorite subject matter of her paintings, draft horses and the many other animals of agricultural life. Raised on a dairy farm, she sketched, doodled, and painted from an early age, but her education followed another track (music). She spent nearly 30 years in public education teaching and coaching in music and theater. Since her retirement from teaching, she began stuying art on her own and experimenting with various subjects and mediums. Her works include acrylics, pastels, and most importantly, colored pencil.

Working with high quality pencil pigments allows for many layers of under painting and building of intensity very much like water color with control and precision. She calls her style softened realism and is especially interested in the personal, close-up, candid moments of the relationships of working animals and people. Working from photographs Cathy captures the beautiful intimacy of the candid and casual moments in a life with horses and on the small farm. Colored pencil provides the ability to control fine detail and subtle depths in colorfast pigments in a result that is nearly photographic. She frequently undertakes commissioned portraits on this theme. Catherine has been a featured artist in Middlebury's Art Walk and has had solo shows in Vergennes, Bristol, and Middlebury, Vermont. Her paintings may be viewed in the Blue Ribbon Pavilion at the Champlain Valley Expo in Essex Junction, Vermont where they have repeatedly won awards each August.

Catherine is a member of the Colored Pencil Society of America www.cpsa.org, the Green Mountain Draft Horse Association www.greenmountaindraft.org, and owner of Vermont Horsedrawn Services www.vthorsedrawnservices.com

For updates on the Vermont draft horse life and to see more art, visit Cathy's blog
"Green Mountain Horsey Girl"