For the past 20 years, I have been exclusively drawing and painting the female figure.  In particular, I paint women who, for me, are unique in some way.  I imagine these women to be edgy, gusty, glamorous and frequently whimsical.   They are also bold, brave, sassy woman with fascinating lives.  Women you don’t meet every day.  Who are these extraordinary women with lifestyles and personalities many of us secretly envy?  For me they are those bewitching women who immediately stand out in a crowd.  They entertain, shock and surprise us, and even make us wish we could be a little more like them.   We can admire, loathe, love or pity them, but we can’t ignore them.  Ideas for my paintings have come from the real-life stories of famous women, but more often they are based on lifestyles I find intriguing:  a madam in a wild west saloon, a dancer on Broadway, a stripper in a burlesque show, a hooker in a back-alley bordello, a willowy model walking the runway.  Whether I draw from my imagination or from live models, I use gesture, attitude, mood and costumes to create an engaging fantasy for the viewer.  The medium used is primarily watercolor, but gouache, graphite; charcoal, pen, pastel and collage are often incorporated as well.  When paintings lead to a series, it’s particularly exciting because it provides the chance to do further study or maybe give me an opportunity to think about my own life.   Ultimately I hope viewers will step inside the worlds of these women and find a way to connect emotionally, maybe with fascination, excitement, sympathy or amusement.