Oil Portrait of Children at the Beach
Two beautiful grandchildren. Favorite photo. Oil portrait needed!
The Anconas were both musicians and although retired, they gave of themselves to support music for the children of the public school system. Besides the weekly classes, they produced a grand production each year from their 300 recorder students, chorus, soloists, auditions, trips, etc. Their Yearly Holiday Letter had this report: “Our home, strewn with costumes, audio cassettes, and props again looks disenchanted. When we’re painting and making backdrops and up on 20-foot ladders, mounting the scenery and adjusting curtains and lights and mikes, the faculty looks askance. Our bones look awkward and we look tired. The students look pleased and the parents look entranced. We are completely consumed. Our other option is the rocking chair at home, which hovers ominously and is beginning to look more pleasant. This year the city gave us a commendation, but the students give us more in their accomplishments.”
This is the couple that asked me to paint their treasured grandchildren. After years of collecting photos of the little cherubs, and doing creative things with them such as the calendars with the children featured newly each month, now was the time for that extra special something. An oil portrait. When they found me they showed me the perfect picture of the kids at the beach—the little girl in her hat and the little boy complete with his teddy bear. They knew just what they wanted as they motioned for it to be “yea big”. The plan was for this to be a Christmas Present for the children (the parents of the grandchildren).
While I was painting the portrait, we got to know them. Such a totally dear couple! He travelled briefly to Albuquerque that year with the Doctors’ Orchestra. In the summer they spent the month of August in their annual apartment rental on the Champs Elysée in Paris and had their grandchildren visit them. Back at home, she ran the music lessons with his help at the school and told me of a young Russian girl—a protegé at the piano, who could only practice at home with a paper keyboard spread across the kitchen table…. After a while, you guessed it, she raised the money to get her a piano.
When the portrait was done, it was my new favorite (which is often the case actually). Of course they couldn’t part with it as they had intended. They opened their hands and exclaimed, “The children already have the kids with them every day—we get this!” Fair’s fair.
The Rockwell Portrait Painter paints again…
I look forward to having a new adventure painting your portrait—call, email (see gray contact buttons at top right of this page), visit my website with over 100 paintings on it. Looking forward!
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