Woman turns sonograms into pieces of art By Stephanie M. Book Taken from The Lewisville Leader  January 3, 2002 Reprinted in The Colony Courier-Leader, Flower Mound Leader, Southlake Times, and Coppell Gazette   HIGHLAND VILLAGE - Lisa J. Wood highlights the gift of life through her art work by adding intense color and texture to black-and-white sonograms, creations she calls ArtInUtero.The concept for ArtInUtero stemmed from a black-and-white copy of her daughter, Sydney's, sonogram, framed and given to her as a birthday present by her aunt. When the sonogram was enlarged, Wood said the image became so abstract that with out close study one could not be sure what was there. When her second daughter, Samantha, was born, she duplicated the idea so that Samantha would have one as well. With the reactions Wood received from friends and family she decided to take the concept one step further. Wood borrowed sonograms from friends, began to add color and texture, and gave the finished portraits as gifts. The response and emotions that were generated by these led her and her husband to form ArtInUtero. Wood worked as an interior designer and corporate saleswoman for 15 years before becoming a full-time artist and mother. Sydney and Samantha are now 4 and 2 years old, respectively, and Wood is expecting another baby soon. "The girls love it. They think that every image is them," said Wood. "And my husband has been extremely supportive. He does the web site and I do the creativity work." Wood works in the gicleé medium. Gicleé is a French word meaning "to squirt or spurt." The gicleé printers squirts approximately four-million microscopic droplets of ink, per second, onto various media types. The four gicleé printing colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) can produce up to 16 million colors. Wood begins by scanning an original black and white sonogram. Color and texture are added after retouching each sonogram to bring out the features and poses of each baby. The final portraits are printed on premium photo paper, canvas, or watercolor paper. Custom framing is also provided. Each print is accompanied with a label containing a copy of the original sonogram and a personal message or statistics if the baby is already born. Wood prefers to tailor each portrait for the parents, incorporating their ideas about sonograms and the baby's future. She encourages the parents or clients to provide descriptions or photos of their homes, trusting in her to create and frame their child's portrait to blend with his or her new home. "Every portrait has come out differently," Wood said. "Each portrait is as unique as the child." Sales prices for commissioned works range from about $175 to $800, depending on paper type, print size and framing choice. Wood has the capability to create prints from six-by-six-inches to 34-by-44-inches. Each framed portrait normally takes six to eight weeks from receipt of the sonogram to the shipment of the finished framed piece. If the portrait is unframed, Wood estimates time to delivery at three to four weeks. Wood began giving these creations to family and friends as gifts more than a year ago, and only after experiencing their reactions did she realize the possible market of interest. "We've had a lot of eyebrows raised, but we have also had a lot of tears," Wood said. Once people actually see the pieces, rather than merely try to imagine her visions, they are deeply moved and touched, she said. Last year, an artist who lives is the Metroplex area, but has a huge following in New York, saw Wood's work when she was preparing for the Festival of Trees. After looking over her work, the gentleman said to her with a smile that it is so easy to make people angry, but when you can make them smile and make them happy you have gone far. "It meant a tremendous amount to me to have an actual artist react so positively to my work," said Wood, who is slowly realizing herself as an artist. Wood's husband gave her a dollar bill, which she said she now has framed in the bathroom, with the reminder that once someone has received payment in exchange for her art work that person is an artist. Wood has pieces hanging in area physician's offices and will be on display at Shelley's Coffee House in Flower Mound in early March. This year, Wood participated in the Festival of Trees using small existing portraits for ornamentation. The tree was placed with an OB/GYN office in Denton. Wood is creating Christmas and greeting cards for family, friends and clients using previously commissioned work to thank them for their support. She also plans to use a number of them to send to area galleries and physician's offices. Kristen Riley of Highland Village, Wood's sister, received a portrait of her daughter Téa as a gift. "I was very moved by it. I had a miscarriage with the first child. When I went in for the sonogram of the second child, I just prayed that everything was going to be okay," Riley said. Téa's portrait shows her arm coming into the frame from the bottom right corner with a big "thumbs up" in the center, printed in primarily of blue tones. "That thumbs up was the first thing we saw," Riley said. "She puts this portrait together that shows in incredible detail everything that is happening with the growth of the child." Riley expressed how amazing it was to see her daughter's sonogram with the detail Wood added. Knowing that there is a life inside of you and then seeing it with so much detail, color and life in the portraits that Wood created is amazing, she said. "People that have children that are 4-or five-years-old, now are going back to get portraits done by her," said Riley, who is expecting another baby in August and plans to get another portrait. Wood and her husband recently started The ArtInUtero Philanthropic Trust "to help promote and support the miracle of life through art." "We wanted to be able to give something back that would make a difference in the lives of as many children as possible," said Wood. ArtInUtero currently donates 5 percent of all proceeds to the Trust, and Wood hopes to increase this percentage soon. "We just really wanted to create a business that we could do together," she said. As an emotional person, Wood wanted to reach out and touch somebody. "How we are touching lives is really meaningful to me," said Wood. "We want to highlight the miracle of life, because we have been so blessed with what we have. There has been such an incredible response it has just kept us going. We are glad that people are sharing with us their babies and their excitement." For information go to www.artinutero.com. Contact staff writer Stephanie Book at 972-436-8014, Ext. 126 or holguinr@dfwcn.com.