Jan Hart

Author and watercolor artist, Jan Hart grew up in the chaparral areas of Southern California with a love for nature and the out of doors. Her education background includes a BA degree in Zoology and Chemistry and a MA degree in Architecture. While she resided in the Pacific Northwest, she taught design, drawing and watercolor privately, at the University of Washington and at Cornish College of the Arts. She left the northwest in 1993 and moved to New Mexico, where she created an artist's center with gallery, studio and casitas at her home in Espaņola, just north of Santa Fe. After 15 years in New Mexico, on the eve of losing her home and livlihood in the 2008 US financial crisis, she moved to Costa Rica to begin again, at age 66.

Jan is both an artist and a writer and finds her voice in both media. Her first book, "The Watercolor Artists's Guide to Exceptional" color remains a favorite among artists though now out of print. Published in 2007 by Walter Foster, it has kept its 5 star ranking with Amazon.com and is available through re-sellers or as an eBook through Jan's website, janhart.com. Her NEW second book, "A Woman Awakens: Life, AfterLife" is a very personal, true life spiritual memoir containing over thirty of Jan's paintings that accompany and illustrate her 18 year search for the meaning of a message she received back in 1997 from an entity who called himself Raphael. Yes, a vision started it all.

Jan continues to paint, write, teach and welcome visitors to her simple home above the clouds in southern Costa Rica.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science." Albert Einstein