about  PAINTING CHILDREN

Creating a compelling work of Art starts from skill, but for me the real connection happens when I am painting from personal inspiration–free from what I am expected to do.  Keeping the purity of my idea and inspiration alive throughout the painting is the hard part, because I am often trying something I have never tried before (children are always a brand new experience).  That can sometimes make me feel vulnerable, which is why confidence is so vital to my success, and why this adventure becomes an exciting search.

Children do not shut themselves off from our complicated world, but instead touch it, taste it, move it, bend it, or sometimes break it.  Children do things not merely to observe the world around them. They seem to investigate how things work and experience each moment as brand new.  With this in mind, creating a painting with a child becomes a collaborative effort.  Model and painter inspire each other, and many times awaken to a magical place where creative ideas are born.