Deborah Sipple

Red Genie

From an early age, Deborah Sipple found her love of color and drawing. She studied sculpture, creating three-dimensional forms until the dust and other irritants threatened her health. Sipple’s close friend and mentor, Rhett Lynch, bought her the largest set of Prismacolor pencils, which opened new potentials in image-making. She layers watercolor and pencil, creating abstract forms that are almost sculptural, brightly colored dreamscapes. “My work is intuitive. Movement, light, color, and shape inspire me. I’ve been drawing abstract images for many years, even before I began doing sculpture. After I stopped doing sculpture and began these drawings with colored pencil the images evolved and expanded. I felt very compelled to create them and didn’t understand exactly why I felt that way until one day while drawing I realized it almost felt like I was carving a sculpture. ” -Deborah Sipple, 2020