Children at play always fill me with ideas. Watching my son and his friends on the playground at school: seeing how their hair is ruffled or how they're perched on the monkey bars: can give me an image for a fairy painting. I like it that kids are not perfect in their appearance. Their little socks are falling down, or there'll be a little girl with her hair in a ponytail but some of the strands of hair will be coming out. That's the charm of children: they have a style all their own.

As far as the backgrounds and settings of my paintings are concerned, much of what I paint is a direct reflection of my childhood home in West Virginia. I paint from my heart and from my memory. I'm still inspired by the mountain mists and the beautiful countryside surrounding the Greenbrier River region of the state where I spent my summers. There were also lots of animals to watch. I remember seeing a bear in our garden once and lots of squirrels, chipmunks, and raccoons. In more recent years, I've also used my son's stuffed animals as models: Coco Bear, Elli La Phant the Elephant, Bunny and Giraffe: one or more of them usually show up in my paintings.

My artistic influences are varied: the Impressionists, for their effects of light. Carl Larsson, for his domestic scenes. The children's books of the '20s and '30s. One of my favorite children's book illustrators is a Dutch artist, Henriette Willebeek Le Mair. She really captures the body language of children: toes turned inward, socks falling down to ankles. She taught me that you can sometimes convey more about a child from looking at the back of his head than at the front. Small gestures speak volumes.