Mary Lou is a vivacious redhead who loves to party. Other than the red hair and gesture and beads, this figure does not resemble the real McCoy. By taking such artistic liberties, I try to convey emotion.

I believe caricatures are frequently perceived by the subjects as cruel, so I am not fond of doing them. Mary Lou was thrilled with the rendering of her figure. Who wouldn’t want a tiny waist?

I loosely based this figure on Lautrec’s 1894 Yvette Gilbert Greeting the Audience. In that painting, the figure in long black gloves is looking in the opposite direction and bowing to the audience with her right arm raised to grab the edge of the curtain. I “borrowed” some of Lautrec’s loose brush work and lines and the manner in which he used the blank paper. I also get my ideas from the sketchbooks I keep when I travel. I usually do line and gesture drawings from which I can later create scenes and figures either from memory or the drawings themselves.