Such a sweet girl from Mississippi. A birthday surprise.
Normally I try to paint subjects looking directly at us. Guess that harkens back to childhood .... constant insistence by my father that I "look people in the eyes when I talk with them!" Later when I was older the lesson morphed into this: listen to what people say .... but moreover, watch them .... micro expressions, hands moving, muscles twitching, skin colors, energy colors .... actions intentional and otherwise ... the place where truth blasts out louder than words ever dare to tread .... or as Daddy would say "don't listen to him -- watch his feet".
But Maggie .... well, she seems to express her real identity gazing heavenward. At least that's how it looks to me. So eyes-cast-heavenward it is for this little portrait.
Starting with the traditional red clay ground on rough canvass, glued... with hide glue of course ... to birch plywood. Primed with lead white. Lessons drilled into me from the Florentine tradition, like those from my father, are hard to shake.
