I’ve had an eye on this image to paint for quite a few years now. It’s a full body photo with lots of outdoor space around her and cold gray skies. I hadn’t decided how I wanted to handle the design or painting of the environment. Finally I decided to just crop it. That’s where the story is anyway and the crop made the painting stronger. It was my fasted portrait painting ever. I would like to think it was so much faster because I’m so much better, but the truth is that when there are no eyes to paint no ears to paint, and overall very little in the way of a face to paint – the painting is so much easier to complete.

You might wonder why I am showing the painting in such a skewed manner. I didn’t really want to but I’ve been affected by something that happened recently. Essentially, I was contacted by a woman in Philadelphia – across the country from where I live, who let me know that she saw one of my images framed and on the wall of a restaurant in a town near her and was interested in this print. My name was on it she said and she searched for me. I was confused. I had not sold any such painting or print to anyone on the East coast. In fact, I don’t sell prints. Ultimately, I came to understand that someone took a posted image printed it, framed it and put it in the restaurant. It’s pretty hard to keep this from happening. I thought that if I skew my images a bit, that might dissuade a few people from stealing, but probably not. I knew you could still see and appreciate the painting even posted in this distorted fashion. Please let me know if that is not the case.

Below is the image that ended up on the restaurant wall. I like it also. They are so cute! It’s one of my very first oil paintings 4 1/2 years ago. I remember so well taking the photo reference while in Italy. Perhaps I should have skewed it in this post!

Well, that’s my story. Have a great weekend. Winifred