>> Alicia Christy: I'm Alicia Christy. I'm a retired Army Colonel. I served in the medical corps for 22 years, and I'm a watercolor artist. Art has impacted my life and I can impact the lives of other people through my art. I joined the military in order to finance medical school, and my best friend in medical school - there were only 2 black women in my class. I'm 50% of the black women in that class. Dr. Sydney Ross Davis, she writes, and so she said, we should do a children's book. So it's called Chuckey and Pumpkin Rule the World, and it's about our kids. And I illustrated it, and she wrote the text. The thing that I like about watercolor is it brings me such peace and tranquility, and during difficult times in my life, just painting has brought me such joy and such calm, so I'll start by talking about healing arts exhibit at Walter Reed. The works that I had in that exhibit were a collection of portraits, faces of the fallen, women proudly served, and they were the portraits of women who had made the ultimate sacrifice or been killed at the Pentagon, or in a wreck in Afghanistan. A photo of Sergeant Nicole June holding a baby at the Kabul airport, and she had written on her social media, I love this job. I said, "I have to paint that". People when they think of the military or veterans, they think of men and it was important for me to tell the stories of these women, and to honor them, and bring some joy to their families through their portraits. So that was the inspiration for that collection of portraits. It's a way for me to also say thank you for the very important work that people who serve do, and I'd like to think it's something of a gift to their families that someone wants to honor them in that way. And so I'd like to talk a little bit about even though you may not want to invest a lot of money in paints or brushes, it's important to have good paper because that is crucial. So I use cold press, 140 pounds. When you're doing flowers, one of the essential things is selecting the subject. And I often pick things that I'm inspired by, so I saw this floral arrangement actually, and I liked it so much I took a photograph of it. The disadvantage of photographs is sometimes the source of light is not very good. The advantage of photographs is the composition is usually pretty good. So the first thing is selecting a subject, and my best subjects are ones that I see and I'm just inspired. I want to paint this. So if this is a completed pencil sketch, and this is a relatively complete painting. And so you can see all the principles, here. You know, choosing a subject. This was actually some flowers my husband brought me. And choosing your source of light, and so you can see here that the shadow is over on this side, and that this side of the box is darker, and that the areas underneath the petals are also darker. And within the flowers themselves, darker on this side, and also darker where the light is not shining. So in this area, and in this area, and you can see it primarily at the bottoms, which is where it's darker. I had all sorts of opportunities that I might not have had in the civilian world, and so I have absolutely no regrets about that. I do have - I don't know if you'd call it survivor's guilt, but I do have some guilt in that my path was so easy, and for so many women in the military, it was not. I feel a special duty to tell their stories and to honor them because I was so blessed and so privileged. And so I feel that's a duty and an honor that I have to recognize, you know, the sacrifice that so many made that I didn't have to make. I believe in Uniting Us. I'm committing to donating. [ Music ]