About Megan Kennedy

Megan Kennedy is a Bainbridge Island visual artist, specializing in realistic portrait painting and figure drawing.  She also draws and paints still life, and flowers (in watercolor).  She works mainly in oils, but also creates portraits and life drawings in charcoal, graphite, and pen and ink.

In 2013-2014, she completed a realistic portrait painting atelier at The Ryder Studio under Master Anthony J. Ryder in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  She also studied classical drawing and painting at the Gage Academy of Art from 2006 to 2012, studying under (among other teachers) Matthew Buckner, Susan Bari-Price, Geoff Flack, and Margaret Davidson.  A graduate of Antioch University in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in art, Megan is a certified K-8 teacher, and has taught at the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle.

Megan usually paints from the live model, although she occasionally also paints from photographs.  Enlivening the “sitting” process with music and warm rapport, she enjoys getting to know the individuals she paints, and finds that the connection results in a piece of art that conveys not only the appearance but the personality of the model.

Megan was born in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), on August 24, 1976.  In 1990, she underwent brain surgery for a congenital vascular condition, and suffered a stroke that temporarily paralyzed her right side.  At the time, she was an accomplished cellist as well as a burgeoning artist.  Over the next 10 years, although she recovered from the paralysis, she transferred most of her fine motor skills to her left hand to develop increased dexterity.  Currently Megan is ambidextrous, but draws and paints with her left hand.