Real Art

When we lived in Georgia I met a lady who was doing a pencil portrait of her friend's kids.  I didn't have kids at the time, but thought it was such a cool idea.  It just seemed like it would be a classic thing to have hanging in our house someday.

Fast forward 13 years and we are the proud owners of real art.

We actually know the artist.  She even signed it.  That makes it legit in my opinion.

A few months back I asked a friend of mine, who happens to be an art teacher, if she would be willing/able to pencil our kids' portraits.  She emailed me a picture of a portrait she did for a friend of hers that was "just for fun."  It was amazing; I thought I was looking at the Gerber Baby.  I was sold.

I gave her a couple photographs of our kids from when each was four years old.  These were some of my favorite pictures we'd had taken.  She went to town.  We received the portraits a couple weeks back.  They are everything I had hoped for.

Maddie's hair in this portrait - it was one of my favorite parts of her picture and it brings back the memory of how fun it was for me to fix it that day.  I feel like I could reach out and touch her hair.

This one is special because I actually took this picture when I got a new camera; it was one of my first photo shoots of our kids where I was actually trying to make something we could frame.  Jake sat through endless pictures that morning while I played.  I think Jennifer said she loved Jake's cheeks or something in his photo.  She might have had a pet name for him like "Jakey-Pooh" - probably just the artist in her connecting with her subject.

Anyway, these will hopefully be framed in the spring or sometime this summer.  They got pushed to the backburner because of a dog and a laundry room redo.  That and the fact that I told Mike these were going to cost a pretty penny to frame.

Jennifer's not paying me to say this, but if you are at all interested in talking with Jennifer about something similar (only use your own kids...), let me know and I will get you in contact with her.  I can't wait until we have these hanging in our house to look at everyday.  Thanks, Jennifer!