This weeks task: a commissioned painting for a nursery. A painting of elephants, an elephant - something to that effect. Sketches are done and soon will be picked by the client.

Lately I've been doing more and more work aimed at children and their bedrooms. While children as a target audience was not something I would have ever thought of on my own, I am really enjoying making things for them. If my goal is to make precious functional art objects to be loved used and remembered, there's nothing that fits that better than the objects from your childhood.

The task then becomes how to I take my darker, surrealistic, female-centered work and lighten it up for children?

These are some of my finished pieces:

And then I remembered that my work does take freer, more childlike forms from time to time.

I realized that use of color, collage, and gestural line work can be the link between the old work and the new. And these little birds will definitely be the inspiration for the next few pieces to come. . .