An Atlanta-based fine artist working primarily in oils and acrylic, Debra most often combines a mixed media layering approach in her art-making through the use of handmade collage papers, inks, and varied (often handmade) mark-making tools. She’s a delighted imagemaker in multiple visual art disciplines, writing, and fine art photography, which she employs in her frequent travels and documents regularly on social media.

A Facebook follower once noted: “It’s like there are all these different artists running around in your brain!” That’s an accurate observation, as evidenced in her art training in multiple disciplines. A life-long learner and researcher, Debra enjoying her creative explorations, finding her clients also delight in seeing what new things she comes up with in her unique approach to painting, commissions, shows, classes & courses. She loves to keep things interesting and invites you to join her creative journey.

Debra teaches online, locally and regionally in the Southeastern U.S., through workshops and private sessions in her home studio. Since early 2020, she’s become a natural with online platforms and sharing her natural gift of encouragement in Creative Café with Debra Hart Studio - a Facebook community for creatives of all kinds and all places. In 2023, she launched a private subscription-based creativity and spirituality platform called Creative Café SOUL Collective with Debra Hart Studio, where the community meets online monthly to push further and deeper into spiritual practices through art journaling and journaling. She cultivates joy, peace, and laughter wherever she goes, and has a heart to see others discover and flourish in their creativity and life!

Keep reading for more info (“Debra’s Story” plus a bunch of sudio pics) …or click here to go straight to the SHOP

I’ve been a creative girl since running amuck in the fields and wilds of my rural Michigan childhood home, encouraged by my parents & family to pursue all my creative bends.

Early on, that meant making doll clothes, writing and illustrating hand-made books, making my own gift-wrap out of paper grocery bags, writing a family ‘newsletter’ with pen-pal cousin Diane, and creating handmade greeting cards. all this creative mess spilled out onto my math pages, mainly in the form of horse drawings, and led my 3rd grade teacher to recommend that my parents “get the girl some art lessons so she’ll quit doodling on her school work!”

I don’t think that suggestion was meant all that kindly, but I can thank Mrs. Pringle (promise I didn’t make that up!) and local artist, Donis Haynes, who saw my work in a 4-H art class and recommended the same thing. Soon after, I became privately tutored by Mason (MI) art guild artist Vesta Eckhart for nine years starting at age nine. As an instructor myself now, I am grateful for the incredibly solid foundation that Vesta provided in realism drawing (charcoal, pastel, conté crayon, pencil, and pen & ink), as well as oil, watercolor, and abstract painting. She taught me how to handle just about every subject, and would often read from art history books while I worked. Vesta encouraged me to enter local art shows and cheered me (and my parents) on as I won awards. With such a wide exposure at such a young age, I had little trouble self-teaching later on when mixed media, collage, and acrylics caught my fancy.

A Southern girl for over 40 years now, I’ve been actively involved in the worship and creative arts in some form or another for most of that time. It’s been my privilege to teach mixed media, collage, and art journaling classes since 2012, and to serve as a leader in the creative team of Futures Church (Previously Influencers Church) since 2015. I’ve been mentored spiritually by Deitra Shoemaker (closerstill.org) since 2011, as an artist & entrepreneur by Matt Tommey (matttommeymentoring.com) since 2017, where I have served as a mastermind leader and now team member. I’ve also aligned since December 2022 with Joel McKerrow for coaching and mentoring through his School for Creative Development, based out of Melbourne, AU.

I began showing my art publicly in 2017 in various gallery and shows, and teach art journaling & mixed media techniques at Influencers Arts Academy. Invited to be an assistant oil painting instructor at the John Campbell Folk Art School in Western North Carolina, I spent a week helping a favorite master oil/plein air artist & Floridian, Robin Popp, and would have taught in 2020 and 2021 except for the pandemic. I assisted another mover-shaker artist friend, Amy Smith, at her Devotional Creativity Art Retreat in the Pinehurst area of North Carolina; and was a chosen instructor for the distinguished Gathering of Artisans (gatheringofartisans.com) near Asheville, introducing new techniques and spiritual practices in my workshop called “Whispered Layers: Mixed Media on Canvas.”

My art life has mirrored real life, fraught with stops and starts, but an extended season of emotional and trauma healing means that I’m now free and freely creating again. I am amazed every day that this is the path I’m finally on … and I adore seeing clients’ reactions to a commission or show piece they’ve purchased, or a creative flame that gets sparked in one of my classes.

It’s a joy and privilege helping others come alive, discover, and restore through the creative arts in my classes, workshops, private creativity encouragement sessions (a combination of art instruction and straight-up encouragement about creativity, identity, and heart-stuff), and Creative Café with Debra Hart Studio, a free Facebook community for Christian creatives, where we have deep conversations around faith, art, and everything in between! In 2023, I launched a subscription group for going even deeper into our faith journey and explorations using art journaling, called Creative Café Soul Collective, which has been an incredible journey thus far!

Please, please connect with me … I love it! I can be easily be reached at debrahartstudio@yahoo.com, on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter (@debrahartstudio), join my INSIDERS newsletter (click HERE) to keep up with the latest, or just come by and visit here on my fun and growing little website, where I’m also blogging and come up with new offerings.

I so look forward to hearing from you … xoxo