Raised and educated in Southern California, Bet Borgeson began her first serious art studies at UCLA. Early in her marriage to photographer Edwin Borgeson, they founded and operated a popular boating publication at Marina del Rey, California. After 11 years they sold the newsmagazine and moved to the Pacific Northwest, where Borgeson completed her art education with a degree in painting from Portland State University.
She was by this time working mostly in colored pencil, exhibiting and selling her work in various Oregon and Washington galleries. Although colored pencil as a fine art medium was not then generally familiar to the public, it became increasingly clear that its unique handling characteristics and potential were also not well understood by other artists. Since Borgeson was already teaching oil painting, she felt that she should additionally be spreading the word about colored pencils.
To further explore the techniques of this medium, and to devise new ways of using it, she began contacting other artists throughout the U. S. who worked with colored pencils using different styles and techniques. A three-year effort led to the development of many new and vital techniques for colored pencils. It also led to Borgeson’s and the colored pencil medium’s first book, The Colored Pencil. This proved to be a groundbreaking book.
The wide and international distribution during this book’s first year, a second book the following year--Color Drawing Workshop--plus a pivotal interview by Susan Stamberg of NPR’s "All Things Considered" in 1985 have since been credited with ushering in an explosion of worldwide interest and enthusiasm for colored pencils as a fine art medium.
Bet Borgeson has continued her pioneering work with additional books, with colored pencil exhibitions, by consulting on a major Prismacolor Art Pencil reformulation, and through her teaching. For over fifteen years she conducted seminars and workshops at many universities including Rhode Island School of Design, University of Washington, University of Oregon, Portland State University, and at nationally known art centers.
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