Federal Way resident Hester Mallonee, 56, remembers sitting in her mother’s room as a child, reading and looking at pictures of art books.

“I loved my mother’s art library,” Mallonee said. “Our whole family loved art and music. Ever since I was little I always drew and always imagined things that could be painted.”

Mallonee first painted after attending a workshop on Iconography art with her mother. Iconography is the branch of art history, which studies the identification, description and the interpretation of the content of images, she explained.

“I came home from that workshop and just painted,” Mallonee said. “It was like I could finally express everything I’d been feeling.”

Mallonee has shown her work in galleries and shows locally for almost 30 years. She is now taking her artistic talent to a wall in Federal Way’s Ma Boulange Bakery. The bakery specializes in cakes, sandwiches, breads and gluten-free options.

She will reveal her completed artwork at 2 p.m. Dec. 14, which will be the opening of her annual December Art Show that will be on display at Ma Boulange. She will be showing a number of paintings in a colorful, contemporary realistic style.

“I walked into the shop for the first time and thought the food was delicious and the people were very kind,” Mallonee said. “And then I looked over and saw this great big wall that was completely bare and screaming for artwork.”

Mallonee spoke with Tigran Mirzoyan, the owner of Ma Boulange, and came up with the idea to paint the Rue St. Dominique, her favorite street in Paris on an 8-foot canvas.

“I often travelled to Paris and I lived there for a few months during school,” Mallonee said. “This was my favorite street because it had a neighborhood feel to it, but a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower. Usually streets in Paris that had views of the Eiffel Tower were congested or forested, so this was a unique road.”

Mallonee drew a sketch of the road, then painted a small mock-up version of it before transferring it to the large canvas.

“What I love the most about painting on a canvas of this size is that the eye wants to take you physically into this painting,” she said. “Small paintings capture the eye and imagination, but not the body.”

Mallonee has been painting all day in the bakery for the past few weeks. She said many customers have come up to her inquiring about her work.

“It’s been delightful,” Mallonee said. “I get many questions about what it is that I’m painting and folks seem excited for the unveiling.”

Mallonee said she plans to change the artwork in the cafe around every other month.

“I get so inspired by my surroundings and different things I experience and I love to translate that to paintings I can share with others,” she said.”I love the flowers that grow in Skagit Valley and will probably bring in paintings of those in the spring.”

Ma Boulange Bakery is located at 1770 S. 320th St. in Federal Way.