Lovely Ladies really started over twenty years ago for me with a project from the heart. This fascination with interpreting a woman's persona was something I have always enjoyed. Illustrating trade publication ads and then rendering my t-shirt line continued to provide a reason to create different female images. She could be portrayed as sensible, tender, sometimes intense, sexy, or intuitive. It is all in her countenance. Stemming from this art, I have a deep appreciation for other artists, especially female, conquering the craft with beauty and grace.

Noted as "the perfect convergence of literature and art", New-York-based painter and fashion illustrator, Samantha Hahn's first solo book, Well-Read Women: Portraits of Fiction's Most Beloved Heroines, is becoming an instant classic for the book lover's library. With expressive watercolor renditions of iconic literary heroines like Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Holly Golightly, and Nancy Drew, the pages turn with importance in textured watercolor paper as you read the adjacent dialog by each character. The Kindle version cannot compare to the actual book itself - the cloth spine silk-screened in a graphic pattern is vintage grace re-imagined for contemporary taste. 

Hanukkah is very early this year, and Christmas is not too far after... Can anyone say "Wish List"? 

Feast your eyes on some exquisite excerpts from Hahn's book. How many heroines do you recognize?

No matter how many of these beautiful, powerful, and compelling women you are familiar with, to know their origins and relate to characteristics of each can empower the lovely lady in each of us. Read, reflect and most of all, recognize the virtue of literature's universal bond and the art to behold in each of our personal stories. 

Such a revered gift for all the well-read women in the world... xoxo-Sonya

Whether you’ve read some or all of these stories, I hope you enjoy gazing into the eyes of all of the powerful, damaged, beautiful, and incandescent women in my book. I hope you follow them back to their original stories and come to see them in your own way, too. - See more at: http://www.samanthahahn.com/blog/2013/05/29/well-read-women-portraits-of-fictions-most-beloved-heroines-available-for-pre-order/#sthash.7SuutWTX.dpuf

Whether you’ve read some or all of these stories, I hope you enjoy gazing into the eyes of all of the powerful, damaged, beautiful, and incandescent women in my book. I hope you follow them back to their original stories and come to see them in your own way, too. - See more at: http://www.samanthahahn.com/blog/2013/05/29/well-read-women-portraits-of-fictions-most-beloved-heroines-available-for-pre-order/#sthash.7SuutWTX.dpuf