Feminist Fairy Tale Egg Tempera Painting. A young girl contemplates an enchanted frog prince in this examination of the idea that every girl would love to kiss a toad, win a prince, and completely subsume her life in his.  Her face is serious, and the toad’s jewel like eye seems to lead into a dark unexplored universe.  The background of willow leaves encloses the moment, and stirs in the breeze of possible change.  The girl’s pale gold head scarf stands in for the crown of a fairy tale princess.  I painted this as a portrait of my daughter at sixteen or so, when her clear eyed realization of the trade-off involved in pairing off with a boy impressed me with her reluctance to conform to expectations of a teenage girl’s priorities.  This image is available as a print here.

Egg Tempera  20″ x 20″

In the Artist’s collection – not for sale