Charla Hayen – Name Portraits by Charla! A Name Portrait is an illustrated word. The mediums are pen and ink, color pencil, watercolor pen and embellished picture pieces from the early 1900’s. The artist Charla Hayen begins each design in pencil on illustration board.. Charla also highlights each reproduction in color pencil so that every picture available has original work by the artist.
Charla is a Virginia artist who lives and works in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her studio overlooks the rooftops of the historic town of Winchester. As a young child Charla spent countless hours in her room illustrating her own stories. She always loved pen and ink…the black ink on a white background was exciting to explore. Lettering was another area which became of interest and she participated in various calligraphy classes.
She had the opportunity of a long distance class with calligrapher Michael Sull…often featured in Victoria magazine. However, she does not consider herself a traditional calligrapher but rather a graphic artist. Her work is definitely influenced by the lettering of the past, but Charla designs her own lettering to fit the word that she is illustrating.