Hannah Moore comes from a creative family. Her father is a painter, and her mother makes ceramics. Even her grandparents and their forebears on both sides were artistically inclined. So, it was no surprise that she would grow up to be an artist as well. “I like to imagine I was using paint as soon as I was old enough to dip my fingers in it,” she said.

After graduating from the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, Moore studied painting at Syracuse University in New York, classical figure painting and sculpture at Lyme Academy of Art in Connecticut, and illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she received her BFA in 2018. She is scheduled to have her first show at the Field Gallery in West Tisbury this August.

The majority of her most recent work has come from observations of the natural world. “I have been lucky to live in places surrounded by wildlife, where I can go out and observe the ever-changing landscapes and the creatures that reside in them,” she said. Last summer, while living at her grandparents’ house in Chilmark, Moore was inspired to paint the piece above, entitled Two Swans.

The irises in the background reminded her of the flowers that bloom “in full force along the pond banks in late May” year after year at her grandparents’ place; the swans in the foreground were inspired by a pair she would see often at the Old Mill Pond in West Tisbury. “I wanted to combine these instances that remind me of warmth and rebirth with the coming summer,” she said.

Many of Moore’s works of art start as rough thumbnail drawings in a sketchbook. “There I can figure out the subject matter and composition,” she said. Once satisfied with the layout, she turns the sketches into more refined illustrations before beginning the final product.

“This particular painting started as an ink drawing of two swans against a black background,” she explained. “I then transferred the drawing in pencil onto watercolor paper, moving the two swans closer together, and surrounded them by wild irises.”