Portrait On Wood

Photograph of Laura I worked from ~
Portrait I did from the photograph~
Details~

I decided to push myself to create a portrait of my daughter Laura. I did it from a photograph I had taken when we were at coffee in a wonderful little cafe in Cambria California. Laura lives in New York City and had visited us several months back. I took some aspects of the photo and changed them a little here and there but stayed somewhat true to it. I almost feel the portrait is a bit stylized. When I emailed it to my brother a very talented artist he said, "it looks just like her." That made me feel really good as I never dreamed that I would do any kind of portrait work or work that includes faces. I have done crafts, painted abstracts and florals, done tole painting etc. but have not really pushed myself to do faces until now. I think that fear of failure was part of it. I am learning to take risks, push through my fears, paint over something, change it where the piece is not working and grow from my work. I don't have to like everything I create but when I do I am happy~

You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith. ~Mary Manin Morrissey