Artist Diana Wilkoc Patton* specializes in watercolor (and acrylic) garden and landscapes, florals, house, and pet portraits. Her work is in private and public collections in the USA and several foreign countries.

A graduate of Brown University, cum laude, Diana has won over 135 awards, including four Grumbacher Medallions, in both judged and juried shows. She is included in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA and WHO'S WHO IN THE EAST. She is a Full Member of the American Artists Professional League, The Pittsburgh Water Color Society, the Garden State Watercolor Society, the New Jersey Water Color Society, and the Essex Watercolor Club, among other arts associations. Diana is a member of the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the western Pennsylvania chapter of that group. Previously she taught beginning and intermediate/advanced watercolor for the adult school (J.A.C.E.) in Bridgewater, NJ and other places. Diana is available for commissions, demonstrations, and workshops.

During the summers of 1989 and 1991 she obtained special permission from the Musee de Claude Monet in Giverny, France, to paint in the Monet Gardens there; and with the hundreds of photos Diana took, she still enjoys painting their gardens. The summers of 1994, 95, 96 she gave watercolor workshops in the Green Mountains of Vermont, a wonderfully scenic place. Diana also enjoyed traveling (and painting) in Australia and New Zealand, Kenya and Tanzania, Japan, the Galapagos, and Bulgaria. A confirmed "photoholic", Diana rationalizes that the thousands of photographs she's taken are "research material" and "fantastic fodder" for her paintings!

Although she loves traveling and painting wherever she can get to, Diana's favorite painting places are her own home and garden, and the island of North Haven, Maine, where she retreats for a couple of weeks each summer. "My garden totally fascinates me, and it's my "studio" for at least six months of the year . I plant my vegetables and flowers according to color schemes I think I'd like to work on, and shapes I think might inspire me! All is a jumble of color and pattern! When you add sunlight and shade and my tiny, but totally delightful mini-waterlily and goldfish pond, I'm happy as a clam in my own backyard."

When winter approaches, she drags some flowering plants in to coexist with her houseplants, and also paints fishes from her aquarium, the glass, china, and Teddy Bear collections, as well as from the afore-mentioned photos of her travels.

As she is more and more drawn to the animal world, fishes and butterflies, zebra and lions, and even the birds, squirrels, and deer at her feeders, are entering the scene in her newest work. "My eyes are constantly delighted with what's around me, colors and light and dark patterns, fishes with different expressions (really!), flowers and vines, and warm porches with windsocks and flags, and my brain swims with ideas and paintings I want to paint (and stories to write and illustrate). There is never enough time, but there is always so much wonder!"

Diana has now been writing and illustrating picture books, having published 4 picture books for children.

Diana is available for watercolor workshops and demonstrations and commissions. She often does pet and house portraits, or florals and landscapes to coordinate with a specific décor. She has a line of greeting cards and note cards.

* Diana is also known as Dee Wilkoc Patton and in her college days Dee Wilkoc.