If you click on the link below, you will see some of the memorial pictures I have been working on this last week. I have a couple more that I need to do.   (They are not in order necessarily. Some of the pictures I have posted here before.)

Memorial Portraits



I have been doing memorial portraits like these for years now. It seems like when I start getting requests for them, they come in bunches.   I will get several memorial portraits to do a time.  Then sometimes I go for months without having a single request.

It used to be -and sometimes still is- incredibly hard to draw these pictures for people. When I am drawing these pictures, it makes it easier for me if I focus on the people in the images and imagine them living- If I think about their death it makes me too sad.  When I think of them living, and being happy, it makes it much easier to draw them.    I remind myself of how much it will mean to the recipients when they receive the drawing.  This gives me motivation to get it done.   

When I hand people their memorial drawings, I many times am so worried that they will hate it..that I wasn't able to get the face right, or wasn't able to capture the personality of the person in question.    But then, I will see the person who receives the picture's reaction.   Many times, they burst into tears.  It kills me inside to see that.  But I know that it meant so much to them, and the minor flaws that I might see as such a big problem really don't matter at all. 
They just want their loved one to be remembered!  

If you click on some of the pictures in the link provided above, you will see the stories as told by their loved ones.