Moving away from being a hobby artist,  now I’m hoping to make my mark . Now the quest isn’t to see what I can draw or paint or create in any other way. It’s to speak  fluently as an artist in artistic language.

From the outside I’m sure it looks like I’m stalling.

How is it that others can make a living selling hot dogs and shining shoes but I am unable to zero in that precisely and eek out a place for myself in the art of persuasion? Or the art of celebration? or the art of whatever joy I happily embrace?

I don’t know.

Meanwhile, I have adjusted the creative process.

My model, Leah has perfect physical presence. As a result, she’s the right flavor of beautiful for the concepts I  paint. She’s busy enough that we haven’t had a photo shoot for a long while, so I’ve come up with this workaround.

By drawing freehand from the start, I hope to not be overly influenced by  reference photos.

This is a slow go. It’s time intensive.

Here is an example which features the Faeries Penny and Lily. I call it “candy nabbers”. It’s been pointed out that front doors open inward, not outward. Really. This observation ignores the possibility that tiny pretty faerie girls might not exist. If they  do, then maybe the door isn’t hinged backward. The porch should have two posts.  A dropped peanut butter cup would not have stayed down unnoticed in the real world.

My thanks to Grand daughters Esther and Cecilia, whose pretty faces helped me dial in this girl’s profile, and to Leah who is an ongoing inspiration.