Artist Bio

Self-taught, but not uneducated. There's a difference.

Becky learned color theory in her teens while studying to be a florist. She examined the branching patterns of various trees while taking horticulture classes at Michigan State University. She became familiar with the lay of the local land from the seat of a tractor on the family farm, and witnessed the deterioration of old barns and other structures by driving Huron County's many back roads. All have had an impact on her oil paintings. As a photorealistic oil-on-canvas landscape painter, she feels it is important to depict one's favorite places accurately.

Becky was raised on a dairy farm near Ubly, Michigan, and later moved to Alabama and to Arizona before returning home to Huron County. She lives with her husband and two Australian Shepherds near the beach town of Caseville, Michigan. Her hobbies include training for and competing in the sport of dog agility, music, writing, and photography.

During the day, she creates content for her online real estate school and provides technical support to her students, but spends most evenings painting. Her favorite things to paint are landscapes, water and old buildings. She formed Favorite Places Art in 1999 while living in Scottsdale, Arizona, and some 25+ years later, she still spends a part of each day refining her skills.

Her art may be viewed at https://www.favoriteplacesart.com/new_paintings or by following her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569525714353.

Becky S. Ryan

Artist Statement

The goal through my art is to bring memories to life. I am not out to change the world’s way of thinking. The purpose of my oil paintings is to bring people back to a simpler time or to a favorite place – to help someone re-live a fond memory in the briefest of glances.

I consistently apply a photorealistic approach to my paintings to capture the very essence of "being right there” at that certain moment in time. I have painted one-room schoolhouses where students attended during their youth, farm scenes that one day may no longer be the view from someone’s front door, and dramatic wedding locations that have since been returned to beach sand.

Rarely taking artistic license means that I do not edit out the messiness of nature, because nature is sometimes messy, and I strongly feel that is what makes my paintings seem more real. I thrive on being able to get the details correct. To do this, I paint from reference photographs that I take myself or which are provided by the person commissioning the painting.

Since several of my paintings are of places that no longer exist, my focus on rural landscapes, recreational areas, and old buildings has become my small way of preserving a tiny bit of history, if only in the eyes of the ones who once lived it.