Envy Painting

A tiny but powerful portrait of a mystery woman. One piece of a large body of work completed while studying in Florence, Italy observing hundreds of immaculate marble sculptures. I once read a quote by the illustrator Quentin Blake in which he explains how sometimes you can spend hours on a portrait and never quite achieve a likeness, while other times you do an impulsive sketch which unexpectedly pins the subjects' soul right on to your paper. I feel as if this woman has a fire in her eyes that I didn't create, but printed on my page- as if i'd slapped her with a piece of paper and her personality had transferred. Despite her tiny size, she holds her own more than any other work i created during my time in Florence.