Despite some problems, such as the overworked section in the upper left right^[1] (which is why I stopped colouring the piece and decided to call it done) this drawing has remained a personal favourite for many years; it's one of the few pieces of my own work hanging in my studio, and certainly the oldest.

graphite and coloured pencil on paper about 11x13"; image is cropped to roughly 10x12" Cropped, coloured and value adjusted. 1984

I started doing this vertical shading style in the mid-80s, and completed three (more or less) finished portraits^[2] in the style. One, of my friend page's mother (from a movie-star worthy photograph of her as a young woman) I gave away; the second, also based on a photograph (that at least I took) is...um lost?

This third one is a fantasy, and not based on a real person. (The prayer plant and snakeplant leaves are almost certainly based upon plants I actually owned, though I used photo references for the roses. I probably also owned pothos and silvery inch plants at the time as well. The black eyed susans suggest that I either had taken pictures of them—they're common garden plants (& wildflowers) in my region, or they may even have been blooming, which means that I would have made the drawing in June or July.

The inspiration for this sort of thing likely came from the work of Alphonse Mucha or Mary Barker, whose work I've admired for many years. —I find it kind of interesting that the character reads to me nonbinary, though of course that word wasn't in my vocabulary back then. But fae have always struck me as the sort of people to occupy marginal spaces.

UPDATE 23apr21: correction, with footnote.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.