This is Angela, a former student that came one summer for the Camp program I worked that year. She was a delight! Often singing songs she'd made up, and dancing along with it. She practiced her ballerina steps and tap as she gracefully moved about. Life was something to enjoy, and to dance and sing about. When not invovled with that, she spent hours creating beautiful art, studying me as I drew or painted with her and others, fliping though art books for ideas. She'd take a book on how to tole paint flowers, and study it. She would figure out pretty well the strokes to mimic it with markers. A clever, sweet "Angelic" child. I miss her, and when lucky run into her at a store or on base. A enchantress of creativity. I did her portrait of her trying not to giggle, well, not as much as she kept doing as she posed. I used Painter Classc originally when I did her portrait, but redid the hair and eyes to add more detailed tiny strokes using Painter IX. Not a manipulated photo, as when I painted this digitally, it's from a blank canvas, and stroke by stroke built up layers of colors, details, highlights, blending, and again, repeating to add more of each until I get the look I'm after. A portrait like this one will take me on adverage about 4-8 hours to finish. I usually take a day or more break to go back to look it over gain with a fresh pair of eyes. Traditional painting a portriat with wet paints at an easel takes me 2-5 times longer. This way, no paint to dry, I can chage areas I dislike in a few clicks, and not start all over again in frustration.