New Venture: Portraits

I gave birth to my little girl ten months ago. I cannot believe how much I have changed as a person, a wife, a teacher and an artist in this time. I finally understand what people mean by childhood and life traveling so quickly. As a child, and nearing adulthood, we take time so much for granted. We want to be older, be bigger, chasing this identity of being whatever is next. The summer feels like a year. Four years feels like an eternity. My baby isn't a baby any more and I don't know where time went. She used to fit into my arms, now her body dangles off mine, heavy and long. She pulls herself up, walks with my support and uses words like dada, momma and dog correctly. She waves and says hi using the same song in her voice that we do, the "hi-iii." People always asked me for the first nine months of her life how much I liked drawing her. The truth was, I wasn't drawing her. Between working, mommying and taking care of all the in-betweens, I was not drawing her. I was painting, continuing my studio while she napped or slept at night. But the closest she came into my work was in the abstract, as in the painting "Raise." It wasn't until I was in the throws of teaching high schoolers pastel that I pulled out some paper and pastels and started drawing my daughter from my classroom computer screen monitor. The kids saw what I was doing and they loved it. They haven't been able to see me draw more than in demonstrations so this was a perfect opportunity to have them watch the process of a realized and refined drawing in the material they were using in class. So, that's why I started drawing portraits. My daughter's images were so popular, I had many people asking about getting a custom portrait done. And here we are. I forgot how much I enjoyed drawing people, painting people as well. If you are interested, please let me know.