Instructor -- Karen T. Taylor
Karen T. Taylor is a portrait artist who worked as a forensic artist for 18 years at the Texas Department of Public Safety in Austin, Texas. She attended the School of Fine Arts at the University of Texas and the Chelsea School of Fine Art in London, where she was also a freelance portrait sculptor for Madame Tussaud's Was Museum. Her crime-fighting artwork for law enforcement agencies and FOX television's America's Most Wanted has involved a variety of art services to aid in the apprehension and conviction of criminal offenders or promote the identification of unknown deceased persons. Her work has been featured on FOX, ABC, CBS, CNN, Court TV, the Discovery Channel, The History Channel, Telemundo and the BBC. Popular CBS drama CSI: created a forensic artist character based on Karen and her artwork and hands have appeared on both the Las Vegas and New York shows. Due to the success of her forensic art, Taylor was named on the "Texas Women of the Century." She was the first woman to receive the Dondero Award from the International Association for Identification for her "outstanding contribution in the field of scientific identification". A forensic art instructor for over twenty years at the FBI Academy and other law enforcement academies, universities, art and medical schools around the US and Canada, she now also devotes her in-depth knowledge of the human face to training fine artists. Her specialty is highly accurate and expressive portraits in bronze. After decades of depicting bad guys or their victims, Taylor particularly enjoys commemorating in bronze those she calls "The Good Guys". She accepts both forensic art and fine art commissions through her studio, Facial Images in Austin. She is author of Forensic Art and Illustration and the upcoming The Artist's Guide to Understanding the Human Face.