Mother and Daughter

For the past few days I've been working on a six by six inch canvas for a fund raiser for the Hardy Gallery in Door county.  The event is called the Community Mosaic Project.  The Artists Guild art supply store in Sturgeon Bay supplies the tiny canvases free, then volunteers each paint one.  All submitted canvases are hung at the gallery and people buy one for about $30.  Thing is, they can't pick or choose.  They get what they get. 

I picked up my blank canvas at the store last week, as well an assortment of other goodies I decided I had to have - some textured rice papers, a delicious red TomBow pen.  Then I thought about what I might paint for the project.

I finally settled on doing a small version of what I've been doing all winter, which is adhering wallpaper to canvas and then painting people based on vintage photographs I find in second hand stores.

6x6 inches, oil on wallpaper

I remember finding the little black and white snapshot of these two women, who I imagine as mother and daughter, in an antique mall in Lake Geneva.  I used one piece of patterned paper in the background, seen mostly clearly in the areas to the right of the figures and below their feet.  But the same pattern is apparent in the standing woman's dress, and to a lesser extent in the siding behind them.  The pattern unifies the painting.  There is something warm and inviting in the smiles and close postures of the woman.

Now they just need to dry well and then they can be varnished and sent off.  Maybe they will bring a smile to their new owner.