Good Intentions

The boys I babysit are always sneaking toys in their pockets to play with at my house, despite their mother telling them not to. I'm sure most of them make it to school as well. These are usually Spider Man, Star Wars or Indiana Jones action figures, or legos or green army men. All very "boy." So when I was asked to paint this piece, I immediately thought of these boys.

The story goes that a little girl was sharing with her class at school that her grandmother had just died. She became overcome with emotion and had to sit at her desk, in tears. A little boy in the class got up and sat down by her. He reached into his pocket and gave her the toy he had smuggled into the classroom that day to make her feel better. It doesn't matter that it was a "boy" toy, that she wouldn't have cared about. It was special to him.

The day of the photo shoot, I just asked the boys, "What do you have in your pockets?" The oldest boy reached in and produced a little green army man. Perfect!

Thanks so much to Kira, Aidan, and their Kindergarten teacher for letting us photograph the classroom, and to my daughter for hiding in the background with her cast on.

Christmas Cards from Grandma

I had the privilege of photographing Elijah, one of my daughter's friends from Kindergarten, for this piece. He is such a happy soul! He was willing to help out, and couldn't stop smiling the entire time. I told him that I'd be painting a picture of him for TV, and he said, "Make sure you paint my skin brown!" I assured him I would. That was actually pretty tricky, since I'm so used to painting pinkish beige tones, and I'm afraid his skin got a little overworked, but I appreciated the challenge to paint brown skin, and hope to be able to do it a lot in the future.

Heimlich

What an unusual Thanksgiving painting! The story goes that this man stood up choking in an office lunch room, but nobody stepped forward to help him for a while. Then some man he didn't know came up from behind and performed a successful Heimlich maneuver and saved his life, for which he was very grateful. See how thanksgiving comes into play? Thanks so much to Matt and all his friends at Ancestry.com for helping me out! I'm thankful for your help!

Armistice Day

This is a painting of the end of fighting in WWI in France, on November 11, at 11 a.m., Armistice Day. They say the fighting intensified, then right at 11:00, it was like everything hit a wall, then was silent. A man ran out into no-man's-land to plant an American flag in a shell hole, and a soldier played music on a German trumpet. I had to research to get the helmets and uniforms from the right war.

By Hawking's Chair!

I felt it an honor and a privilege to paint Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant astronomers and mathematicians of our time. I was disheartened to learn that he was an atheist, but glad to know that he relies heavily on family. This was one of the first paintings I've done where the end product is almost exactly how I imagined it in my head!