Hannah Dray Vokey

About the artist

Hannah graduated from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY with a BA in Fine Arts. After graduation she worked at Hill Holiday advertising agency in Boston, MA, while pursuing her interests in portrait drawing on the side with noted Boston School painter Robert Cormier. Cormier invited Hannah to be on of his students at the R.H. Ives Gammell atelier on Newbury Street; a full scholarship program teaching classical drawing in combination with impressionistic color and seeing. After a few years at the Gammell atelier she furthered her studies with noted Boston School painter, Paul Ingbretson.

After her formal training she put her pursuit of drawing aside in order to focus on her career as a graphic artist.

Interestingly enough, it was her great passion for surfing that ultimately inspired her to pullout her paints again and move back to pursuing art full time. Spending all that time in the ocean allowed her to experience the wonderful moments only an ocean perspective can offer, such as how the changing light of the day effects the color of the water and sky all around her and the need to put these impressions down on canvas became too hard to ignore. She began what she calls her "surf art", an artistic process where she jottted down notes and made sketches of all she remembered seeing and even feeling while out surfing.

Eventually she made the full move back towards her original love of plein air landscape painting, portrait and still life work, but she is so grateful for the imaginative painting she did with her "surf art" because she feels her having to rely on her memory and "mind's eye" to paint the atmosphere and color she saw out on the water has aided her ih being more sensitive to seeing and capturing the color and atmosphere in her plein air paintings on land.