Penelope Youngfeather

Penelope Youngfeather carries a sketchbook at all times. “I might not sketch wherever I am but the sketchbook habit nourishes my artist’s eye, seeing the world with soul. My sketchbook can be a playground, a retreat, a silent meditation, an explorer’s journal, a delightful moment of humor or any combination of the above.”

Penelope holds an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts with an emphasis in oil painting. However, while living in Vermont she set aside large canvas work and pursued more practical endeavors, “like puppetry, storytelling and theater,” she says with irony, “but I always kept a sketchbook.” In 2007, she met the sketchbook work of Ken O’Connell, professor Emeritus and Dean of Fine Arts at the University of Oregon. With the demands on his time as dean, he took up in ernest sketchbook art— tiny art in however brief the moment.

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Seeing his sketchbooks on exhibit Penelope was deeply moved, “This is a valid art form.” With renewed inspiration, she revitalized her own sketchbook habit and is currently creating in sketchbook # 59. She has traveled in Italy four times for art workshops, most recently as Ken O’Connell’s assistant teacher for his class Sketching in Italy at the LaRomita School of Art. Before moving to Sisters in 2017 Penelope was actively teaching sketchbook classes in Eugene, most popular were the classes Art for a Travel Journal. Her 2018 solo exhibit Life With a Sketchbook displayed her delight in the everyday, awareness of the humble, and reverence for the spectacular. In 2020 Penelope began hosting sketching events in Sisters.

For the past decade Penelope has also been on a quest to overcome her background in oil painting with an eye to painting with the fluidity and transparency of watercolor. Though she loves the physicality of oils and the visceral interaction with the materials, she seeks to find an equally rich experience with watercolors in works larger than the sketchbook page. Like an alchemist turning matter into gold.

You can learn more about Penelope and her art by visiting her Facebook page, or her Instagram page