After drink artist has little yen for paint (7)
I believe the answer is:
portray
'paint' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'after drink artist has little yen' is the wordplay.
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'drink' becomes 'port' (port is a kind of drink**).
'artist' becomes 'ra' (Royal Academician, member of Royal Academy of Arts).
'has' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'little' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'yen' is 'y'.
'port' next to 'ra' is 'portra'.
'portra'+'y'='PORTRAY'
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for portray that I've seen before include "Play" , "Paint a picture" , "Use words to describe" , "sketch" , "Act" .)