Big Yee-haw welcome to Author Viola Ryan. My eyes were bedazzled when Viola sent her photos of the paintings she is sharing with us today, as well as two paintings her daughters created. There's a lot of talent in that family! Viola explains how she became interested in painting. If you're a writer, I think you'll completely understand her reasoning.
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Thanks for having me again, JQ. I love getting a chance to chat
with new people.
I used to write Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction. That’s how
I learned to write and how I realized I was a writer. One of the cardinal sins
in fan fiction, the one people will blast you most for isn’t grammar mistakes.
It’s creating what is known as a Mary Sue. That is basically the author
inserting herself into the story. It warps the story because the canon
characters around her often act out of character in order to elevate the Mary
Sue. The author can’t let anything bad happen to the Mary Sue and conflict is
key to any story.
When I started writing The
Mark of Abel, I wanted to avoid this, so I made my character an artist. I
can’t draw a straight line with a ruler, so I figured she was different from me
and I wouldn’t turn her into a Mary Sue. I love art, so I could handle her
talking about art. Then came the scenes where she actually painted. Painting is
a key plot point in the book. I needed to learn how to describe the act of
painting.
I decided I needed to take a painting class. It didn’t matter if
I was horrible at it. I just needed to learn the language, so I could write the
scene. I found a class on acrylic landscape painting. The class was a lot of
fun. All I needed to do was bring a blank canvas. The instructor provided the
rest and walked us step-by-step through each painting.
Not only did I love it, but I was pretty good at it. I have an
eye for color and there are few straight lines in nature. My favorite part was
mixing the colors on the canvas to paint the sky. I took the class for over a
year before I attempted doing a painting outside of class. I had learned
various techniques and applied them to my own original creation.
My husband is in the Coast Guard and we travel around a lot.
Finding a friend I feel truly close to is difficult. When we lived in Delaware,
I found such a remarkable woman. I call her Super Mom. She had previously only
lived in California and Texas. She’d never seen a real fall before and the
colors amazed her. Her husband is in the Air Force and I wanted her to be able
to take fall wherever she went. That painting was the first one I did outside
of class. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to
her.
My daughters have inherited my love of art. I took my oldest
daughter (at age 13) to the painting class with me. I taught my youngest the
way I learned, by going step by step. Their paintings proudly hang in their
rooms.
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| The two photos above were painted by her talented daughters, Jessie and Meghan |
When I finally wrote the scene, people ask me how long I’ve been
painting. Recently I made another friend a New England fall scene to take with
her to Washington State.
You can find all of my other paintings at http://www.violaryan.com/my-paintings.html
If you want to read the scenes I wrote thanks to my hobby, check
out The Mark of Abel.
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Is a frustrated artist
Lucifer’s ticket back to heaven or will falling for her reawaken the compassion
that got him expelled?
Lucifer is fed up with humanity. He created hell to deter
evil, but man’s inhumanity is only escalating. He just wants to return home to
heaven, but ever since that little problem in the Garden of Eden, the Pearly
Gates remain firmly shut to him. It doesn’t help that he’s the first vampire,
an abomination in God’s sight.
Fortunately,
two thousand years ago Lucifer’s estranged brother, Jesus, gave him a prophecy.
To fulfill it, all Lucifer has to do is find the right artist, study her
artwork and the path back to heaven will be revealed. The artist even
bears a symbol so he knows who she is. Too bad she is murdered every time he
finds her.
Janie’s a frustrated artist and
college art teacher who wants two things—a guy she can show her paintings to
and a night without nightmares. Each nightmare plagues her until she paints it.
She doesn’t realize these paintings are key to unlocking her destiny, one that
could redeem the original fallen angel.
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Links:
About Viola Ryan:
A very good friend of Viola Ryan in high school said,
“You don’t think outside the box. You blow the thing up.” Sometimes boxes need
exploding. That’s why she’s here. She has a whole bag of C4 and isn’t afraid to
use it. She’s blessed with people who treasure her eccentricities or at least
put up with them.
Sometimes the box can be a cozy place. Without some
sort of stability, her two daughters’ and her life would be unmanageable. That
stability comes from her husband. He’s the rock holding her family together.
On the flip side, his career is anything but stable.
He’s a Chief Marine Safety Technician in the US Coast Guard. They’ve lived from
Kittery, Maine to Yorktown, Virginia. Fortunately, the moves have all been on
the east coast. Then again, the Coast Guard tends to guard the coast.
Her oldest daughter (16) was born on Cape Cod, not far
from Plymouth. Massachusetts. Her youngest (12) was born in Yorktown, Virginia,
down the road from Williamsburg. Viola jokes they’re doing the colonial America
tour.
Social Media Links:
Website: http://www.violaryan.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jeanie.ryan.9
pinterest: http://pinterest.com/violaryan/
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/violaryan
