SketchBook and Painting Practice

Having grown up in the cosmopolitan city of Washington, D.C., Stacy Kamin has lived a life any aspiring artist would envy. Providence brought Stacy into the world with a mother who nurtured her interest in drawing and painting every step of the way. Noted artist and teacher, Jacqueline Kamin, indulged her child’s art supply caprices and enrolled her in children’s classes at the National Gallery at a very young age. Art was alive in this bright artistic spirit, and as Stacy herself says, “Creating images from pencils and paint was like magic to me. I knew early on that I had to be an artist.”

Stacy studied illustration and traditional animation at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, earning a BA in 2000. After graduation, she interned with a small animation company long enough to realize that illustration was not her calling, although a fascination with capturing movement was. This she would explore through line and paint as a fine artist.

She joined her family in Los Angeles and there found a well-respected Chinese artist, Shuqiao Zhou, to mentor her privately for six years. Zhou’s teachers came from the great Russian lineage of Ilya Repin and Valentin Serov, and through this expressive tradition, imparted a love of paint that is still a hallmark of Stacy’s work.

Drawn to the dramatic effects of Rembrandt, Stacy sought out the instruction of two well-known masters of this knowledge—David A Leffel and Sherrie McGraw. She credits their influence for the startling light that she is able to achieve in her own work. “They introduced me to Abstract Realism, a way of painting so rich that I can’t imagine my education ever ending—I will be a student of this great tradition my entire life.”

This humility coupled with a selfless generosity led to a desire to teach. She presently teaches workshopsfor Bright Light Fine Art nationwide. Recently she taught a figure and still life painting workshop with David A Leffel and Sherrie McGraw at Scottsdale Artist School; in 2019 she conducted a portrait painting class in Noyer’s France; and locally she teaches private workshops in Seal Beach.

In her own words Stacy describes this life-long obsession this way: “I believe art is supposed to evoke emotions and feelings in human beings. When I see a great painting, it touches my soul. Even if I can’t describe what I feel in words, a work of artaffects me profoundly. The reason I never ceasestudying is because the magic of capturing life on a flat surface continues to intrigue me. I want my own work to provoke thoughts and emotions for viewers, so that they too can experience the beauty that captivates me still.”