Simmons children 1 and 2

I've known my friend Lori Simmons since we were in kindergarten together.  My favorite childhood memory of Lori was the time she and I were practicing cheers together during recess in 2nd grade.  We were both probably the quietest kids in our class, and instead of yelling the cheers we kind of talked them and did the motions.  I've also always liked this photo from senior year when we were on the JETS team (front row, first and second from left), which was a sport in which we competed with other schools via multiple choice tests.  Oh, those were heady days.

We had lost track of each other after graduation the way most people did in the days before the internet, but recently we found each other on Facebook.  It's kind of strange to reconnect with friends from school following a 20+ year gap, during which time the mental images of those friends had remained as if in suspended animation at age 18. 

When Lori (who has barely aged since high school) asked me to paint her children a few months ago, I was delighted.  Lori and her husband John live in Kansas where they are raising two boys and four girls--a big family to be sure!  Two of the girls, Faven and Diborah, are adoptees from Ethiopia, and they joined the family a couple of years ago. 

The kids are divided into two groups: the Bigs and the Littles.  Nathan, Derek, and Kayla are older and adult-sized, while Faven, Diborah, and Emma are fun-sized.  As I thought about how I could cram all of those kids onto a standard 22"x30" piece of watercolor paper, I had an idea to create a diptych (two-part painting) going across two sheets.  This would allow me to stretch out a bit more and paint all six of them a lot bigger.  Jeff had the idea to arrange the kids around a big tree, and the trunk would unite the two groups visually.  Lori liked this, so back in August she packed up five of the six kids into her van and drove ten hours to our hometown of La Harpe, IL, to visit family and take some photos for the painting.  Derek, one of the Bigs, was unable to come along due to a sports obligation, but I felt like I would be able to add him into the mix later. 

The day before the photo shoot, Jeff and I scouted around town for the perfect tree trunk--a huge locust tree in my grandparents' front yard.  Once the kids arrived we took lots of photos and tried to get good individual shots of each one.  Lori's big children were cooperative, good-looking, and kind of quiet--they knew how to take a photo!  The littlest ones didn't quite understand what was going on but were lovable, sweet, and curious.  It was fun to see my lovely friend Lori again, and she stood in for absent Derek in the photos.  Before I knew it, we were back on the road.

The reference photos I used (one for each painting) were cobbled together from five separate photos, with a lot of emailing back and forth between Lori and me.  Adding Derek into the mix was not as easy as I had thought, but Photoshop whiz Jeff was a big help with this.  Then it was up to me to actually paint all of these kids.

Painting multiple figures is always difficult and sometimes even scary.  Imagine: you do a great job on Kid 1.  What if Kid 2 doesn't turn out?  Then you not only have to paint Kid 2 again, but you have to paint Kid 1 as well.  What if you do a great job on Kids 1, 2, and 3, but after you lean the painting against the wall to look at it, your cat comes by and projectile vomits all over it?  (That has never happened, but it's always a very real fear of mine, and as a result I always store my in-progress paintings well above the cat puke line.)  I completed the painting on the right side first, took a break to paint Terry and have my little cancer scare in September, and I finally painted the kids on the left in October.  Each kid's name is hidden somewhere in the tree.  Everybody presented some kind of problem for me, but there was also something I really liked about each one.  From left to right:

Nathan: 88 square inches of blue plaid took me two days to paint, but his face was the easiest of the bunch.

Faven: hmm, she was just totally fun.  Like she wanted to help me paint her in some way!  I loved her sassy expression and casual pose.

Emma: her hair color was hard to mix, but her big brown eyes and finger in the mouth were irresistible.

Diborah: the complexity of her gorgeous dress was tough, but she has the face of a rock star.  Loved painting it.

Kayla: I had to change the light on her hair (the sun hit it pretty intensely), but I loved the color of her skin, and her eyes are beautiful.

Derek: as I started to paint him, I saw a lot of Lori in his features, but I felt like I had to fight against him looking too much like her.  It kind of goes without saying that his white outfit was a delightful change of pace.  (When you're painting a watercolor, the white of the paper is your white.  You don't paint the whitest parts; all you have to do is paint the shadows.)

During the time that I was working on the paintings, John and Lori were invited to Washington, DC to be honored as Angels in Adoption. This is a program created by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute to 'provide a Member of Congress the opportunity to honor an individual, family, or organization that has made an extraordinary contribution on behalf of children in need of homes'. Their congressman, Jerry Moran, nominated John and Lori to be the recipients of this award.  They are a very special family!  If you would like to read more about them, Lori maintains a blog called Are We There Yet? that describes their adoption odyssey and what it's like raising such a big, beautiful, unique family.  Congratulations to Lori and John, and thank you for asking my to paint Nathan, Faven, Emma, Diborah, Kayla, and Derek!

Comments

[Gary Eddington]

Kelly,

Great painting and a very interesting article! The account of you and Lori Whispering cheers in the second grade was pretty revealing.

Thanks to you and Jeff for helping Em with the Halloween makeup idea. Wouldn't have happened without you two. Great picture, will be in touch about picking up Jay and TA portrait.

Yd and Ym

[Jean]

Hey, Pup! :)

Sorry this question isn't really relevent to your post, but if I were to buy only one of Nigella's books, which one would you recommend that I get?

thanks!

[Melinda]

I remember that sweater.

[Kelly]

Thank you Gary Eddington! :D

Jean, if you're really into baking, go with "How to Be a Domestic Goddess." If you want some fast and easy recipes, try "Nigella Express." "Nigella Christmas" makes for some great food porn, and "Kitchen" is HUGE, with something like 500 pages of recipes and info. Loving it.

Melinda, I kept that thing for years and years, until I couldn't stand fighting the sweater pills any more. NOVEMBER 6, BABY!

[Shannon]

my kid was searching online for an "art poster". first she looked at some picasso stuff and then "animated penguins" but then she typed "book shelves" in the search window. she said she just liked the way they looked. that made me think of your paintings the end.