Spring is approaching!  Here in San Francisco I may not be burdened by the snow that the rest of the country has received this winter, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t spend the tail-end of winter longing for the color and life that spring brings. This past year was especially rough in terms of weather: we had winter instead of summer, two weeks of summer in the fall, and now winter again in the winter.  It’s pretty weird here.  In any case, in an effort to bring some spring color into my studio, I looked back into my sketchbook this winter and brought one of my previous sketches to life as a painting.

Amy is the second painting that I have made of the girls from Little Women.  Jo was the first, and not long after finishing her I started working out the subject and composition for a painting of my favorite of the March girls: Amy.

She is the delicate, feminine counterpart to her sister Jo.  Of the four March sisters these two are both the most passionate artists, but their personalities are on opposite ends of the spectrum, especially in the beginning of Alcott’s novel. In contrast to Jo’s tomboy nature is Amy, who is very much a proper Lady (with a capital L!).  As a child Miss Amy dreams of romance and a glamorous life full of all things beautiful, but she’s also not afraid to set her own beauty aside and get a little dirty for her art.  The character is based on Louisa May Alcott’s youngest sister May, who did the illustrations for the first publication of Little Women.  She studied painting at home and in Europe, and even had one of her works accepted into the Salon in Paris.

I can relate to many aspects of both characters, but Amy, being a painter and the youngest of the sisters, always struck a special chord with me. Her personality reflects the spring, a time when romance and creation abound, and she helped to bring some bright springtime color into my studio over the past few weeks.

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