Jill Banks

Life is full with family (spouse Randy, grown son and daughter, daughter-in-law, two granddaughters and mom), friends like you, and an art career that keeps oil painter JILL BANKS smock-donned and constantly on her toes. Each year, Jill teaches multiple classes a week over three semesters (she was ranked as one of the Top 9 Painting and Drawing Teachers in the Metro DC area by expertise . com); exhibits at  top fine art festivals (see Jill's web site's Events page for upcoming shows); sends work off to juried regional, national and international exhibitions; paints in juried and invitational plein air competitions (including Olmsted Plein Air, North Carolina Plein Air, Gloucester Plein Air, Knoxville's Artist on Location, Sedona Plein Air,  En Plein Air Texas, Telluride Plein Air, Wayne Plein Air, Mountain Maryland, Harford Plein Air and more); takes on a small number of portrait commissions; and travels for personal painting trips and inspiration. In 2022, she took on chairing the 52nd National Women Artists of the West Exhibition held in November-January at McBride Gallery in Annapolis, MD. No moss is growing under her feet.

Sometimes she does something spectacular. In 2011, Jill launched her 100 Faces in 100 Days Project, inviting friends, acquaintances and strangers of all ages to sit to have their portraits painted, allowing her to get to know her subjects and allowing her volunteers to get to know more about her passion -- painting -- in the process. For the first 100 consecutive days of 2011, Jill painted 100 different talking, moving faces from life and then posted photos of the paintings and reflections on the sitter and sitting on her blog. What she learned from the project was that anything was achievable given hard work, flexibility, openness, a sense of humor and some problem-solving skills. Plus, it was exhilarating and fun living life out on a limb. That project led her to pursue painting plein air or around town, inside and out. If people were no longer coming to visit daily in her studio, she was going to go out and find someone or something interesting to paint.