This was an interesting endeavor. Perhaps you’ve seen this painting in a book or in online images. it is from a painting titled Daughters of Edward Darley. It depicts Darley’s four daughters. She is the girl to the far left. This is head and shoulders of a full body, interior room painting. When I began this painting I was not aware of the many delicate color and tonal variations in the highlight area of her face. There is little point in trying to duplicate each brushstroke, but I did work diligently to create her likeness and the overall look. It was tedious to paint but enjoyable in a way. I did a pretty good job. I’m not sure what I learned in this process but learning is always an incremental and cumulative process. I can never paint a portrait in a day – I am definitely not a fast painter. Below is the painting progression which took place over 5 days.

There’s an online site for painters which looked at my paintings as they considered whether my paintings would be appropriate for their site. One of the reasons they liked my site was that I very often showed a painting progression, as above, whereas most painters do not. It’s never pretty – but I’m not concerned. I forgot the initial sketch even this time. I don’t know if there’s any real interest but I’ll try to do a bit more of this in the future. In the end, I was invited to the site but decided not to participate. It felt too much like social media.

Below is one of my favorite digital paintings and favorite memories.

The story is captured in the painting. Its a digital painting I did years ago. I was in New York. I descended the steep stairs to Grand Central Station to board a train and was delighted and astonished to see this little girl playing her trombone while her little brother held the music. The trombone case held the money thus far collected. Only in New York I thought. I ask for permission and stood for a few minutes to observe the performance and to photograph them. I love the color variation throughout. Why don’t I do that now? I felt so free and creative when I was digital because if I messed up, I could throw away one layer and try something else. Not so with oil paint but I’m getting there.

THE RESISTANCE: It depresses me to think about the ongoing nightmare we live in. The resistance gives hope but I saw an interview yesterday which I think is critical and may serve us well. I would predict that there is absolutely NO WAY Donald can make it though the remainder of his term. The problem is that the MAGA Republicans have all been so “potty trained” to behave with the same level of cruelty and lawlessness. He might go but what follows? May 1, 2025 – I watched a NEWS NATION interview. If I had any doubt about Donald’s COGNITIVE decline, no doubt lingers. Donald has long had trouble maintaining a single coherent line of thought but it has become much worse. Donald was ask about his position toward HARVARD and his desire the cancel Federal Research dollars, control hiring, student selection and the curriculum. His response shocked and totally perplexed the entire panel and me. He wove a long rambling response started with comments about HARLEM ( which initially I thought he misunderstood for the word Harvard but that was not it. He then spoke of Black support in the election, then he made comments about of billions of research dollars he would cancel at Harvard, then back to Harlem where he said they wanted to do remedial math like (2+2) he said, then back to comments about horrible foreign students at Harvard. His brain is a scrambled mess. Perhaps you saw the ABC interview where Donald was insistent that the M I 13 text which he has been shown on a photo of the fist of Garcia, and firmly believes this text is real. It was explained to Donald that this Arial font had been Photoshoped onto a photo of Garcia’s hand. He was told it is not real but Don was insistent, even combative, siting over and over and over and over again that it is real. Garcia’s hand by comparison has been photographed recently in El Salvador, and does not show any such graphic information. Donald’s mind is not in good shape. For any who were concerned about President Biden, Donald is far worse. President Biden would sometimes forget but he never went off on multiple incoherent tangents. Trumps playbook is to be mean, unapologetic and cruel.

And now, Congressional Republicans have voted that Don can deport American citizens to El Salvador. Can you believe any of this!!! Don, a mad man surrounded by incompetent hateful lackeys. It’s all so dangerous. Winifred

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