My sweet mother died on March 24, 2012 after a valiant 10 month battle fighting pancreatic cancer. I painted this in her memory and in honor of her one month anniversary of leaving this earth.
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| "Granny's Smile" 24" x 24" acrylic on canvas |
She had been strong and healthy prior to her diagnosis and the news of what was to be hit the whole family hard. She was 75 years young and I wasn't ready to lose her. I wanted a portrait of her to hang in my house that would maintain her presence in my life.
I used a method of painting that I learned from Gary Max Collins and John Collins, well known local Utah artists, during a volunteer project that they did with the kids at The Children's Center where I work. It was an honor to be able to work with these two incredibly talented men for a day. In their process, you size a photograph to scale and divide it up into one inch squares and cut it apart. Then you measure out the equal number of squares on your canvas and use painters tape to isolate each one. The painting is created square by square and since the painters tape covers details of all the adjoining squares, you can't see how the section that you are working on connects or relates to the rest of the painting until after you are done and remove the tape. It creates a pretty cool effect. I now lovingly refer to this method as Gary squares.
Here is the painting Gary and John made with the kids that inspired my project.
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| "36 Children Paint Spring" acrylic on canvas 36"x36" The original photograph that the painting was made from is in the lower right hand corner (click image to enlarge) and the painting was made by children in the Therapeutic Preschool each painting one square. |
I chose to do the single color of purple because it is the ribbon color for pancreatic cancer. To learn more about pancreatic cancer, or to support the cause, visit www.pancan.org.
Here is the original photograph that I created the painting from.
The quality of the original photo is blurry and terrible, but it remains one of my favorites because I love the expression on my mom's face so much. It is total and complete happiness, exactly how I want to remember her. I think my painting totally captured the spirit of my mom and I love having it hung up in my house.
