In my last post, I wrote about the raven in this painting. It's been interesting giving personality to seagulls in many of my recent pieces, but ravens turned out to be much deeper.

I think of Edgar Allan Poe, one of my favorite writers when I was a teenager. (I was a dark adolescent. As my sister says, a prescient Goth.)

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

My model Adriana, in the guise of Frida Kahlo, is adorned with rings. The raven perched on her shoulder is bearing yet another ring for the object of his affection. The rings are the intricate creations of some of the jewelry artisans who show at the Paradise City Arts Festival - my day job as Founding Director. The rings bring me back to hands, one of my favorite things to draw and paint, and the subject of a previous post.