I began painting professionally in 2001 after a 30 year career as a professional librarian. I am seldom without a pen and sketchbook drawing from life. Sketching is a devotion I developed as a degree seeking student at the Cleveland Institute of Art, 1999-2001. I find intriguing figure types everywhere, from the line in a bus station to a fast moving basketball game. The figure in action draws my interest and I am challenged to capture that movement quickly on paper. My early work has been primarily in watercolor, en plein air. Using that medium I have earned signature status in the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society and the NY Plein Air Painters. In addition I have exhibited in a growing list of galleries and been juried into national and international exhibitions, such as The Butler Institute of American Art Midyear Show. I am active in several plein air painting associations. In October, 2006 I began painting at The Art Students League (ASL) in New York City. There I began painting in oil and drawing on the reservoir of material from my sketch books. Now, my paintings, in both oil, acrylic, pastel and watercolor, continue to draw on these quickly observed figures and situations. Most recently, as an ASL student I was awarded the Fantasy Fountain Fund Scholarship Award for study in the Paris and my "It's a goal" was juried into "The Athlete and the Artist" competition at the National Art Museum of Sport, Indianapolis. From start to finish Sketches and paintings by Alix Hallman Travis I have been an inveterate sketcher since my student days at the Cleveland Institute of Art. I am rarely without my sketchbook and ink pen and I find intriguing shapes and figures everywhere, from a commuter train, the line in a bus station to a fast moving basketball game. In recent years I have challenged myself to draw on the reservoir of material in that growing stack of sketch books. Now, my paintings, in all mediums, continue to pull from those quickly executed postures and situations. The figure that attracts me is in motion with a striking gesture. The sketch, not posed but observed in situ, must be executed quickly. This speed of sketching is integral to my process: it reduces my drawing to the essential, only that which attracts my artist’s eye. Drawing what I see somehow leaves an imprint on my brain and I can reproduce that line years after I have made the initial mark. The challenge is to use the sketch of the moving figure in a larger more elaborate composition without losing the illusion of a moment in a sequence of movements. I maintain the spontaneity of the original by redrawing the figure freehand without the aids of scaling techniques.