"Stopped to Chat" was inspired when I was in Comalapa, Guatemala. Watching the people come and go to the market allowed me to see everyday life in Guatemala. This woman stopped on her way home and poked her head into the building next to me. The wheelbarrow contains her goods from the market. I don't know her purpose, whether a friend or family member was there but I had the sense she was enjoying herself. This everyday moment was special to me and I wanted to share it with others.
I wanted to emphasize the patterns in her dress by focusing on the edges. To have a consistent painting that mean emphasizing edges throughout the painting. I decided retaining a lot of the white of the paper was a good method to allow me to do just this. My painting process ended with me adding mid to light valued shapes into some of the open white areas to introduce paths into the painting and consolidate interest in the center where the woman was standing.

Interesting pattern areas, like the window, were important to balancing the painting. I used variations of grays so they would be interesting counterpoints but not distract from the woman. Since the wheelbarrow with the clothes and cloth were in the foreground I felt I had to maintain some greater color variation, but I didn't want these to be too interesting. I muted the colors by placing them in the shade and emphasized the folds to ensure they were recognizable as cloth.

"Stopped to Chat" is one of my paintings included in "Portraits of Life: An Ekphrastic Anthology" with poems written by local artists. The book is the rsult of an event sponsored by the Ellicott City Poetry and Prose non-profit organization in conjunction with an exhibition I had with my friend Elaine Weiner-Reed at the Baltimore County Arts Guild (BCAG) Clubhouse Gallery. Take some time to listen to the video I have provided here to hear the poet reading her piece.

27" X 20" watercolor painting arrives in a white mat and frame measuring 35" X 28.