CHAMBERSBURG — The works of area artists Gloria Walker and Bonnie O’Leary are on display at Chambersburg Hospital this month.
The hospital’s July show is sponsored by the Franklin County Arts Alliance. It features 16 works of art in a variety of mediums, including colored pencil, watercolor, pastels and charcoal. The subjects include flowers, landscapes, still life and animals.
These works are currently displayed in the hallway directly past the main entrance.
Gloria A. Walker
Gloria A. Walker, Fayetteville, graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Art Education. She taught elementary and junior/senior high school students in the Pittsburgh area for 16 years.
Gloria also holds a PhD in Administrative and Policy Studies from the University of Pittsburgh.
She served as an elementary/middle school principal, and ended her career as Assistant Superintendent in the Waynesboro School District.
She grew up in Greencastle, PA in a family that encouraged her from a young age with private lessons from Leah Hawbaker throughout high school.
After a 22-year lapse and retirement, Gloria decided it was time to revive her love of artistic expression. She has taken colored pencil classes from Amy Lindenberger and Janie Gildow, two nationally known professional colored pencil artists.
Gloria has also taken classes from Kent Roberts, Eric Miller, and Laurie McKelvey.
Her realistic depictions of flowers and landscapes show the effects of light and color in pastel, watercolor and colored pencil. In the past two years, several of her miniature paintings in colored pencil and watercolor have been accepted in the national juried exhibition sponsored by the Arts Council of Chambersburg.
Further, a colored pencil work received an honorable mention in the Franklin County Arts Alliance show in 2018. She is also a member of the Franklin County Arts Alliance. She and husband John live at Penn National with their Golden Retriever, Charlie.
Bonnie O’Leary
Bonnie O’Leary was born in Carlisle and lives in Newville with her husband and two sons.
Today she considers herself an artist, something she desired even as a child. There were so many things she would see that she wanted to recreate on paper.
In high school, she took one year of art class. That year gave her even more of a desire to pursue the art ambition.
After high school, she found very few opportunities in the area for her to learn art. She learned whatever she could find available. By her late twenties and early thirties, she was finding more opportunities.
In her mid-thirties, she decided to narrow her medium field to colored pencil but still continues to take different classes for diversity.
She has been taking art classes off and on for a good 25-plus years. Lessons included a bit of everything: colored pencil, pastel, oil painting, drawing, portraiture, charcoal, powdered graphite, book making, journaling, and calligraphy. She has also dabbled in acrylic and watercolor.
The classes have been through many private lessons at Carlisle Arts Learning Center, Chambersburg Council for the Arts, and The Art Center School & Galleries of Mechanicsburg.
In 2017, her colored pencil picture “One of a Kind” was accepted in Ann Kullberg’s CP Treasures, Volume V.
Although her passion is colored pencil, she enjoys experiencing all types of art. In her downtime, she will study photos as well as her art that’s in progress to achieve her goals.
Bonnie’s camera is never far from her, because she doesn’t want to miss a photo opportunity that may inspire her. Details and values are important to her no matter how insignificant. She is always striving to learn something new to advance her talent.
Welcoming and searching for new challenges is what she desires as an Artist.
She belongs to the Colored Pencil Society of America and Franklin County Art Alliance.
On display are four colored pencil, two pastel and two watercolor paintings by Walker. Her subject matter includes flowers and landscapes.
O’Leary’s work includes paintings done in colored pencil, graphite, charcoal, pastel and pan pastel. At times she combines more than one of those mediums in the same painting to create the desired effect.
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