When you give someone a gift you are in for some exposure. Usually knowing if the receiver liked the gift takes some time. It is more thrilling to wait when you know it was the president who accepted your gift. She has her gift with her as she visited the president but before entering she needed to sign a visitor's log. A guard was the one who took the package, the portrait of Little Man the president's horse, to the president.

A native from Old National Pike where she lives with her son and husbands this artist is an animal painter. Her love for animals has now become her business as she was able to learn art back in high school and then take animal portrait courses. Successfully her money making business is doing really well currently.

She works with pastels, drawing from photographs of the animal that have been taken by her or by the owner. Most of the time she uses shows photos to do her horse portraits. She says she falls in love with all the animals, having done horses, cats, dogs, a goat, parakeets and guinea pigs so far. Now wanting to experiment with other animals she wants to make portraits of fishes and turtles using oil paints. Being a veteran in the industry she has the ability to enhance the features of the animal making it more pleasing to the eye.

It was her idea to paint Little Man and wanting to for so long, she contacted the first lady at last for a few photos. It was not long until a reply came from the Special Assistant to the President and Director of Correspondence accompanied by a few publicity photographs of the president and the horse. Having only been mailed photos was not the usual way she did portraits. Usually she goes to the animal's home and meets the pet and owner, getting to know the animal's personality a bit and making notes on color, as a color photo often will not be true.

While doing the portrait, bad news came when Little Man died. Hopefully the portrait will have more meaning to the president now, she shared. Dividing the portrait into four she continued her work. Firstly, she did a pastel drawing which was her basis for the different dark, medium and light shadow tones. Second, she added the color along the lines she had creating and with her fingers blending them in.

Little Man had a light blue background as adding in the bland background was next. The artist shares that you want to make the portrait look real. There was a lot of time spent by the artist in terms of making sure each detail was as real as possible.

With her interest and love for animals she was able to complete the portrait of Little Man. Given that she herself loves horses, she even has her own horse which she houses in Poolesville. She also has a cat, a dog and a goat. She says she is proud to have done the portrait for the president, and expresses the sentiments of gift givers everywhere.

About Author / Additional Info:
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