Meet the Artist: Melanie Moldovan
By Kelli Comer
The world around us provides a beautifully stimulating palette, and local artist Melanie Moldovan uses the splendor that nature provides to her advantage. A lifelong fascination with the landscape around us shines through in her stunning graphite pencil artwork.
“It fascinates me to observe and study the flora and fauna in its natural habitat and to share my perspective and observations with other nature lovers,” Melanie says.
Growing up in rural Northern Ohio, Melanie enjoyed all aspects of nature. She frequently paddled a rowboat on a nearby lake so she could observe the water, trees, and aquatic life from a different perspective than what she could see from the shore. She continued that same general approach into her teenage years on a larger scale when her family moved to Lorain, and her father took her boating on Lake Erie.
Melanie’s artwork mainly captures the beauty of plants, animals and waterways. A graduate of The Ohio State University, Melanie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and she also attended the Cleveland Institute of Art. After partaking in a career as an industrial sales rep, Melanie decided to make the shift and pursue her art career on a full-time basis.
“My creative process involves capturing real-life subjects in their natural habitat by drawing my own sketches and taking my own photographs on location,” comments Melanie.
She has worked with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources-Division of Wildlife, designing nature kiosks throughout Northern Ohio. This experience provided her with a creative outlet and the opportunity to become immersed in what inspires her most. She found it very satisfying to share this work on a wide scale with the many patrons of local parks and nature preserves.
Melanie’s medium of choice is graphite pencil because she says it enables her to capture the minute details of the subject by utilizing the various degrees of lead hardness to create features like depth, highlighting, shading and layering. She prefers to work in a black and white monochromatic scheme because it enables her and the viewer to observe and appreciate the underlying essence of an object, rather than just focusing on its color. She occasionally adds a splash of color to a focal point of interest by incorporating strategically placed watercolor washes in her drawings.
“My drawings take hours to complete from start to finish,” Melanie explains.
“I sell my original artwork at a very affordable price so that someone who wants a one-of-a-kind original piece to treasure can purchase one at a price once thought to only be available to buyers of prints rather than the originals.”
Melanie’s artwork is available for sale at Fra Angelica Studio, located at 530 Euclid Avenue in the 5th Street Arcades in Cleveland. Her work is for sale online at her Etsy shop, MelanieMoldovanArt.