This week's IF was a real challenge to me: I feel my weakness is drawing people. I was tempted to make a portrait of my dog, or a cartoon, but how will I get better without practicing?? So this is a portrait of my grandma, who is 90, and lives by herself on a farm too far away. She was married to grandpa for over 60 years, and lived with him in that same farmhouse that they built for her whole life. She is an amazing woman. I spent many, many summers with her, gardening, canning, and creating. "Gramma" is the one I got my artistic streak from (my mom says it skipped her generation, but nowadays I see her blooming too!) and we would spend many hours painting, decoupaging, making ceramics... She used to plant TONS of flowers so I could make dozens of bouquets and arrangements, set on every surface of their house! One of my favorite stories about Gramma is that, when she was a teenager (in the 1930s!) she would save all her babysitting money and go to the fairgrounds every chance she could, to have a pilot take her up for a flight in his little biplane! She talked her big sister into joining her once, and after the loop-de-loops and barrel rolls, her sister was FURIOUS with her! My Gramma is very precious to me.
3 comments:
This is sweet and heartfelt and I love all that you say about your dear grandma!!! Sweet and very well drawn!
nice b/w illo, ur granmom's character shows through strongly.
Sounds like we had similar positive experiences with our elder relatives. I truly treasure that I had so much time to spend with my grandmother and her mother (Lena, whom the portrait is of) and that they had such an influence on me. Great portrait!
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