Fran's cottage studio in Portsmouth's South End

"I enjoy paying attention to light, and to details that might not ordinarily be noticed. One time I was showing a winter landscape, and a woman told me she never realized that tree branches with snow look pink -- '...but they do!' That's just the kind of impact I hope to make when people see my work."

Fran Mallon was born in Roanoke, VA and was raised in Virginia and on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She graduated with a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1966, and moved to New England in 1969, to Concord, NH.

A student of art in the '60s, she was trained with an emphasis on abstract art, but was so charmed by New England that she decided to make a "180 degree" change in direction, developing her realistic style in order to render the region's colonial architecture. She has been painting in watercolor since 1979, when she joined the New Hampshire Art Association, and has been a member of the New England Watercolor Society since 1986.

In the past five years Fran has returned to oils and continues to paint in both mediums.

Fran has participated in dozens of workshops with well-known artists, in the eastern U.S., especially along the Maine coast, and also in Italy. She maintained a studio at the Button Factory in Portsmouth for 14 years. In December 2007 she moved her studio to a cottage at 112 Mechanic Street in Portsmouth. The charming location in this historic neighborhood has inspired Fran to paint a new series of South End scenes this past winter.