Before the Fall

oil on canvas, 10" x 10"

Finally getting around to this study of two little girls I spotted doing gymnastics on the beach at St. Ives in England.  I've wanted to paint them for quite a while as an expression of the exuberance and carefree joie de vivre of childhood, before puberty arrives and changes everything.

Can I get a smile?

oil on panel, 24" x 24"

I painted this for a class project called the "Three-headed Portrait."  I used a cropped version of a photo I had taken in China of a class of school kids on a field trip to the famous Three Pagodas near the town of Dali in the Yunnan Province.  Only when I zoomed in did I notice the face on the baseball cap that looked like it was floating in space.  I thought it could serve as the third portrait in my composition and an amusing counterpoint to the serious expressions of the two kids.