Hi and thanks for stopping by my web page! My name is Gail and I've built my life around art. I created my first portrait at 3 years old and have been fascinated with drawing and painting people from then on. Over the last few years, my personal work has been focused on the theme of painting and drawing musician portraits. Music has always been a huge part of my creative process and daily life. Painting musicians has allowed me to marry the two loves of my life: art and music! I equate creating a portrait of the musician, much like a musician creates a song. Each note is like a brushstroke, the words are like colors and the right combinations can create a memorable piece. My goal is always to capture the visual likeness along with an expressive quality that you feel as you look at the portrait. Each painting or drawing is meaningful to me. Often times they are inspired by a specific song that resonates with me, it can either takes me back to a particular moment or perhaps it speaks to me in a way that has helped me understand my own feelings. Sometimes the song is just one that gives me goosebumps! You definitely know that it's a great song when it does that. I try to take those moments and feelings and put them into my portraits. I get goosebumps when I watch Joe Cocker's performance of "With a Little Help From My Friends" at Woodstock. There's just something about that performance that's exceptional. It's timing is beautiful, just enough pause in the empty spaces to draw you in and his voice is so full of emotion pouring out into his beautiful raspy tone. And then there's his movements (girations, spasms, dancing, whatever), which to me embody the music as it overtakes him and he jolts with the power of it all. Truly remarkable! That performance was the inspiration to my painting of Joe Cocker. I tried to capture that moment as the music transforms him and he's really just a vessel to it pouring out of him.
So here's some of my background info. I'm originally from Hamburg, Iowa. I earned a B.A. in Art Education (+15 grad credit hours) from Peru State College in Peru, Nebraska. I've mainly lived in 3 states: Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado. I'm married, have kids, grandkids and several fur kids! I teach art at the jr high and high school art at two schools and teach art camp in the summers.
I worked as a part of the Boot Sculpture Community Art project with my students in Sidney, IA and designed and painted one of the boots. I have painted a mural for the Sidney Swimming Pool and restored a ceramic tile mural outside of the Sidney City Hall. Before teaching, I was Assistant Director at the Hayden Art Gallery in Lincoln, NE.
I have shown my work publicly at the Noyes Art Gallery – Lincoln, Peru State College Gallery, Bellevue College Art Gallery and Hillmer Art Gallery – Omaha. I recently participated as an artist in the Southwest Iowa Art Tour at Waubonsie Station in Tabor, Iowa. My art was selected in October, 2016 as “Today’s Feature” at BbuzzArt.com and I was featured in an article at ArtistWaves.com (https://artistwaves.com/gail-younts-inside-my-art-painting-drawing-musicians-6ceb350b8600) and have had my work featured several times on ArtistWaves.com, ArtistWaves Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter. I currently have artwork on display/for sale at Waubonsie Station in Tabor, Iowa, at Rivermarket 190 in Clarinda, Iowa and at O'bees in Fort Collins, Colorado.