1979

1979

The sketch is of mom at fifty-seven with my oldest daughter at less than a year old.

I’ve been sketching from old photos and posting these sketches (titled by dates) of mom, sort of following her through childhood up through the present. She is now ninety-two, so I’m around half way. Many more sketches remain to be drawn.

6”x 8” ink on toned grey paper

I have been drawing and painting so many portraits of models from life over the last three to four years. I find myself often making the model look younger or older than they appear. This has me visualizing and wondering how younger models appearance will change as they age, and even more, how older models must have looked when they were young. It’s gotten bad. Now almost everyone I look at, strangers on the street, other artists I draw with, etcetera, I’m wondering..

Doing theses sketches of mom has been eye opening. I have been looking at her and the photos of her my whole life. The time spent sketching has me thinking of the girl she was before I was around, and more, seeing her not as mom, but as a less known woman’s passage through her own life.