Anna and the Toad

For a long time, I've been developing my artistic license. The two most notable examples of this are regarding my inventive cooking "skills" and my sometimes flamboyant story-telling. As my friend Stan says, "It's a true story....that's the way I heard it."

The newest expression of my artistic license is changing things in my paintings in order to tell a better story. This newest painting (that I worked on FOR-EV-ER) started with sweet young Anna hunting for Easter eggs. She was carrying a basket filled with plastic grass. It's from one of my favorite photos of all time. Anna is eager with anticipation at the start of the hunt. But instead of hunting for eggs in my rendition of the painting, I changed it to Anna showing off a toad she has caught. This was not unusual in the life of our daughters; they loved catching critters. To do this I had to completely change the grip of her fat little hand, and find a toad that matched my vision. In addition to that, I changed the color of her little dress to compliment her hair, and softened the shadows on her face.

Hopefully I captured the same sweet little girl and the look of delight and wonder on her face. That's what I really loved about the photo....not what she was doing (hunting eggs) but how well she was doing it (enjoying life.)