Morgan Samuel Price began her career in 1968 as an illustrator for Hallmark Cards and later became an art director for a small-town daily newspaper, the News Herald in Lake County, Ohio. Today she’s an accomplished fine artist and one of the best plein air painters ever to wield a brush.
Price, a graduate of the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, lives in Altamonte Springs and is a regular participant in the Winter Park Paint Out sponsored by the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens. Through that annual event and others, she has garnered numerous fans who snap up everything she paints.
But this issue’s cover, Meetup at Barnie’s, was commissioned by a private client, not done for a plein air event. Price says she spent four mornings on Park Avenue photographing and painting the iconic coffee shop and considerable studio time refining the image, which depicts a scene familiar to any resident of Winter Park.
Price began painting at age 15 and, through the years, quantified the creative process through numbers. She’ll tell you that you make 22 decisions with each brushstroke — and can name them all.
She has also identified the 23 most common design mistakes that beginning painters make — and still closely examines her own work to make certain that she has avoided making them.
Says Price: “You only develop technical skills like this with a fine mind and the tenacity to use it.”
Having a great teacher helps, too. Price and her young family once lived in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where there were no galleries, no museums, no art stores and no art centers. So she began teaching adults and children how to paint and helped to establish a flourishing visual arts scene in a city mainly known for its oil refineries.
Price has authored two books: Turn on the Light, a Touchstone to Plein Air Painting and Oil with a Basic Palette. She has also produced numerous educational videos and DVDs and, as a teacher, describes herself as “always the most grateful person in the room.”
Winner of numerous awards, Price is a member of Allied Artists of America, the American Artist Professional League (where she was named a Fellow), the Pastel Society of America and the American Society of Marine Artists, among other organizations. Check out her work at morgansamuelprice.com or view it in person at The Gallery 32789 in Winter Park or CERO Gallery in Longwood.