Nancy Doyle Fine Art
This is a reproduction of an original oil painting, 15 Kids and a Dog. I started painting kids about 10 years ago; as often happens, I got the idea from more than one source. I used to drive past a kindergarten almost every day, and from the road I could look down at the playground. I started to notice that the children playing formed an interesting visual image, especially with their brightly colored winter clothes and their free movements. Their figures formed a flat pattern, like a primitive painting. At around the same time, I came across an old Chinese painting called 100 Children, in which their tiny, playful figures were similarly placed in a flat pattern around the painting. I have done a number of paintings of children since, varying the visual form each time. Kids do such interesting things with their bodies, that adults seldom do - they are in motion, and their arms become wings, their legs skate on asphalt; they wave hi and hug one another. All this makes for very interesting images, about the freedom and innocence of childhood.
