Brie Dodson

Dear Michele,

$.02 from the peanut gallery.

After reading your post, I looked at the portraits of small children on your website. I probably would not use them as notecards myself because, although I like them very much, they are clearly portraits of specific individuals, not "generic" notecard-type images. My recipients might wonder, "Who's that and why is Brie sending me a picture of her?"

Also, would it make your clients uncomfortable to know that the images of their children were being used in this way? It would me.

Here's an alternative idea. What if you were to create, say, four portraits that were more generic; for instance, showing only a portion (perhaps only vaguely identifiable) of the child's face in a way that conveyed "childhood" rather than "Portrait of _____." Your painting style and skill would be conveyed in an attractive and marketable way, without any of the drawbacks of using actual portraits. The back of the notecard could point toward your website for examples of actual portraiture. - Brie