Family Tree

Some projects have a way of creating themselves.  Quite a few years ago my local CPSA branch had a member show which included a self portrait project.  It was a fun idea where all of the artists bios were next to their respective portraits.  I created a little 5" x 7" drawing on Pastelbord, and I still use it as my avatar on my bio page and blog. A few years later, in 2008, I got married and thought it would be a cool idea to draw an identical portrait of my wife, Kiersten.  We recreated the same pose and lighting, but looking the opposite way, so when the portraits were set together they would form a cameo.  The two framed drawings were on the table at our wedding reception with our guest book.

Zip on over to 2013, and we've got a beautiful toddler bouncing around.  So, of course, the natural next step was to do another 5" x 7" in the same format of Emma and add it to the cameo.  After thinking about the moody, blue palette of the first two, I decided to take a bit of artistic license and brighten up the palette as well as more directly light Emma.  Here she is, along with the three pics together: