Will & Nina

Nina with crumpled Kleenex (allergies...)

The beginnings of a new couples portrait, started when I was in RI last month, of my cousin Will and his wife Nina, who just celebrated their second wedding anniversary. This is my wedding gift to them, a bit past due! My cousin Del and I made a date to paint together that day. As you can see, he decided to zero in on just Nina. He laughingly apologized to Will for that! I will be resolving this portrait using the photos I took that day. I especially love the top photo - the headless couples portrait. Says so much...

Ghosts and Graves

My maternal grandmother, Lillie Congdon (little one in the center) with some of her family. (Check out that lighthouse painted in the background!!! I must draw that...)
Lillie was born in 1896. That's her grandmother on her right, her mother in the upper left, and her sister Edna in the front. Edna died at age 17. My Mom is named after her...

Lillie ready to take a dip in front of her old beach house at Point Judith, RI. I could use a swimsuit like that...

Some of my cousin Jon's family grave photos...

My great-grandfathers ~ Lillie's father-in-law (left) and father (right), with her first born, my Aunt Carolyn.

My charcoal is waiting impatiently for me to grab it and get going on more portraits of these marvelous old faces...

My cousin Jon is going to be showing his grave photos along with my portraits. We are thinking of cool ways to do this...

Here are some of my ideas:

What if they were B&W prints?

And/or printed on drawing paper, so they look soft and charcoaly?

What if they were printed and then cut out and collaged on lightweight boards, to look like actual stones?

Or...

(Now I'm getting wacky, but what the heck...)

What if they had frames made of live grassy loam?

Or what if we placed the photos in a plot of grassy loam??

With the geraniums and the little flags...

Or maybe some more pertinent objects, objects from their lives...

Just doing some out in left field thinking...

Join in if you like!!

...and Jon's band might come up and play at the opening!

Jon said maybe they can play some Grateful Dead tunes!

Hee hee!!!!!

Complicated Shadows

Another portrait of my cousin Keith Knost , made from another old photograph while listening to a new CD - a great mix put together by my daughter-in-law, Tracey, for my birthday, which includes this...

A Day's Work

I worked all day in my kitchen on this portrait from a photograph of my cousin Keith as a young man. I have never met him - he is my second cousin and lives in New Jersey. We have corresponded through Facebook.

I set up my laptop with the digital photo of Keith to look at and work from.

I was listening to a mix of music and Radiohead's Lucky came on with the line, pull me out of the plane crash, pull me out of the lake. I had to write some of it.

Keith was in a bad car accident in 2001 and is now paralyzed from the chest down. He is in his late 40's and is wheelchair bound. This picture of him as a beautiful young art student at Cooper Union in the 80's is so moving. It just slays me.

I want to do a full length portrait. I thought I'd see how it feels to work from a photograph and decided to just do a study of the head as a warm up.

I must admit that I cried alot while working on this...

Keith's story reminds me of my daughter's. Life can change so drastically, so fast.