I paint the islands
I live in.

I live and paint in Hawaii Kai, on the east end of Oʻahu, in a studio that looks out over the water. My husband grew up here and his family has been in the islands since 1974, so this is home now, for our three kids and for me. He proposed out on the Mokulua Islands off Lanikai, and I'm not sure I've stopped painting that coastline since.

I studied under the Honolulu painter George Iguchi and trained at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and I've been painting the Hawaiian landscape ever since. Most of my work is oil. I build it up with a palette knife in the studio, usually from my own photos, and now and then I'll set up outside and paint what's in front of me.

What I'm really after is the light. The way it sits on the Pali in the morning, the green of a windward valley after rain, the turn of a wave right before it breaks. When I stand in front of all that, I think I'm looking at the fingerprints of someone bigger than me, and I feel closest to him when I'm trying to paint it.

Lately I've been painting murals, bringing the same islands indoors. The first few went up in an office here in Honolulu, and there's one going into Kaiser High School. If you have a wall that needs the ocean on it, or a place you've never stopped thinking about, I'd love to hear about it.

• Based in Hawaii Kai, Oʻahu
• Oil & palette knife
• Studied under George Iguchi
• Honolulu Academy of Arts
• Landscapes, Murals & Commissions