Hers
A drawing student brought in a photo she had taken, a challenging choice for a beginner. I tell my students, “Pick something you love, because you will be looking at it for a long time”. She loves this scene and worked very diligently.
This is the result of her labors, and I think she did a wonderful job! (I removed her name because she didn’t ask to be on the World Wide Web, and I didn’t ask her permission.)
This is how it looks after I’ve photoshopped it for reproduction purposes, in case my student wants to have copies or cards printed.
Mine
For about five years, I have been working with a writer on a book about tuberculosis. It began as a local story about the TB hospital in Springville (here in Tulare County). When he started researching, the story grew into a different book, a massive project. Through it I have learned much more than I ever expected about “the white plague”, as opposed to “the black plague” (both of which refer to skin color associated with the disease, not race, so no need to get your knickers in a twist.)
The author came to me initially for some drawings for the Springville book, and upon further discussion, hired me to edit for him. We are finally reaching the end of the main text and are now gathering appropriate illustrations.
He couldn’t find a good photo of Virginia Poe (wife of Edgar), so he asked me to draw her from a rather gruesome photo (or painting?) taken shortly after she assumed room temperature.
Are you properly horrified? This fits with Edgar Allan Poe’s writings, doesn’t it? I haven’t read his work, but I learned plenty about him through the process of assisting with the writing of this book. I’ll stick with modern writers for my fiction.
Meanwhile, I think the background needs a little bit more work.
Okay, all better now. I also remembered to sign the drawing. 
4 Comments
Thank you for your reply, which I decided to view by going directly to your blog online, oh well. One way to solve this (maybe) is to sign up for a WordPress account which would give me more configuration options. I’m thinking about it. . . .
Anything you learn and can pass along to me would be welcomed. I use WordPress dot org, NOT dot com.
(Note: the option to be notified when there are additional comments on this post is still not available.)
Your student’s drawing is very nice! It almost looks like Crater Lake in Oregon.
If you hadn’t mentioned that the drawing of the lady was post mortem I never would have guessed. To me it looks like a lady looking down and over her right shoulder. But that’s how I would want to remember my loved one!
Sharon, I am sorry about the missing option. I am sorry about many things on this website. Sigh. Sorry doesn’t fix anything, but I don’t seem to know of anything to do except apologize.
YEA!! IT IS CRATER LAKE!!
Initially, I thought the portrait was weird; when I learned it was post mortem, the weirdness made sense.
Comments are closed for this article!