

Contemporary editorial illustration in a current magazine style, painted as a soft oil blended throughout, every transition a gradient, every edge soft and every form carried by modelling alone, on one flat saturated plane of colour behind. The subject filling two thirds of the frame, seated square. A woman with a gap between her front teeth, the skin porcelain and cool with a hot coral flush on the cheek and across the eyelid, the eyes large and pale and looking directly out, hair in hot coral carrying all the saturation in the frame, holding a crowd of pale and dark frogs gathered in both arms and each one softly modelled. Four layers back to front: flat scarlet as one flat saturated plane, one broad mass of pale drapery in front of it, the figure and the creatures, then a fine top pass of soft highlight on each eye and each wet surface. A limited palette of burnt orange, slate and oat with emerald as an accent held low in saturation throughout, each colour area carrying two or three tints of itself. Tender and faintly unsettling.