Well, the last pic in the series is my latest painting. I felt it is important to look back, see where the journey used to be and where it has led me. The drawing on top (Sara, Smile) was supposedly published in "Strokes of Genius 2". I got no notice of the book's publication and have checked repeatedly on Amazon. I don't know where that went. The drawing is colored pencil, my portrait style in the past. The second piece is a still life painted with acrylic on canvas. The style is remains very sedate and quiet, low key color, more dependent on value for its structure (the lights and darks). Now the third is an extreme departure. It is acrylic on stretched, dyed paper. Even as I myself look at these, I wonder-all have good points, all are the same artist, but who is the real me? I was rejoicing that my husband saw the last painting and said, "How joyful!" That has been my aim. A dear friend and artist in her 80s, whom I have known for years, looked at the style of painting on the canvas and asked me, "Where's your joy?" She told me the most memorable thing about me is my laugh and buoyant presence in life. My work simply did not reflect it. She felt it was all that our family had suffered having a son in prison, and maybe that's in part true, but really, to be completely honest, I was trained as a traditional painter. I was hugely fortunate to have had atelier training after the style of the Old Masters. But there comes a time when one must depart...and yet I know I would not be the excellent painter and draftsman I am without that training.
The vase is a "glug jug", a traditional item found in English homes. When water is poured out of the jug, it makes a very loud, distinctive glug-glug-glug sound.
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