Sudanese Woman

I usually paint from life or from my own photo references but this week I saw a good friend's photographs and immediately had a desire to paint from them.  My friend, Tom Szalay, is a professional photographer and these past few years has been photographing many refugees some of which are students at the school where he teaches.  Tom graciously gave me permission to use some of his photos as reference material.  Here is the first of what I hope will be many paintings.