Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Portrait of Memma - with Memma's Help

I am working on a portrait of one of my Memma.  You can just read my blogs and know that she was such an influence on me.  She was always there for me and I loved her beyond words.  So, I decided to paint a portrait of her.  I started with the drawing from a picture that was made on her 90th birthday.  (She died 7 years later).  I began the drawing and was pleased with the results.  Then, I began to lay the paint to the canvas (so to speak).  Well, I kept telling myself not to lose "the look" or likeness.  Unfortunately, boom!  I looked at the painting and all of a sudden it was like, "who the heck is this person?" 

Once, I was working on a painting, this was after she had died, and I actually swore that the reason the painting turned out so great was because I wore her sweater while I was painting.  I call it my good luck sweater. 

So, back to my portrait.  I looked at the eyes that in the drawing had looked so like her.  Just wasn't cutting it.  I looked up to heaven and declared, "Memma, I know that you are up there watching me.  I need you to help me get this right.  I will NOT give up, so you may as well belly up to the bar and take this out of my hands."

Yawl think I am crazy, don't you?  Well, I don't know what happened.  But, suddenly, I just loosened up (something that I have a very hard time doing with painting..VERY!)  And, walla..Memma was back. I still have a lot of work to do on the painting and will post when finished.  She was wearing her favorite dress in the photo, one that her favorite granddaughter bought for her.

Note:  to Charlene and Jo...just kidding about the favorite Granddaughter thing....sort of kind of.....

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