By Vicki Scott
My youngest grandchild Addison Victoria recently asked me to paint her a picture for her new room. My last painting was done in December of 2011 for my mother after she survived a tornado that ripped through houses across the slough from her home on Lake Lo-gan-Martin. She said she was at first but eventually went into her closet and prayed. She felt a sense of peace and the fear left her. She went to bed and slept after that, and the storm did not touch her house.
My oldest grandchild, who is Addison’s sister Ava, requested a picture as well, in this case a hummingbird. So Addison said she wanted a hummingbird, too. I was honored to do a humming-bird since it reminded me of my mother.
As many times as I have sketch one, the hummingbird is easy to draw. The decisions that followed were more difficult, such as choosing what flower to use. That took some thinking. It had to be flower that a hummingbird would be attracted to, but I soon decided that any flower would do. This was not a documentary. Then I thought about the girls’ birth flower. Addison was born in July and her birth flowers are larkspur and water lily. Ava’s birthday is during October’s marigold and cosmos. All these flowers would look beautiful with a hummingbird in a painting, so who cares if it attracts the hummingbird? With the goal of Christmas in mind, I bought supplies to make this special gift happen.
With paint, brushes, canvas, and all the needed supplies on hand, a dilemma ensued – what color to do the background? My husband Alan was forcibly volunteered to suggest yellow to make the hummingbird and the flowers pop. I used bright yellow, and I was proud of how it all turned out. Ava’s picture was finished shortly afterwards, and both paintings were wrapped in plenty of time for Christmas. Even though I had the supplies and plans, I did not paint my other two grands a picture. I planned to do as much because I try to treat all four equally. Then I realized that they did not ask for one. Let it be noted that my art is not forced on anyone.
As Christmas rolled around, I decided to give the grands their paintings later. It turned out to be a good decision. We went out to eat with Addison and she randomly told me her favorite color was pink but that she liked purple, green and all the other colors of the rainbow.
I asked her if she liked yellow. She made a gagging noise to share her dislike for that color. I could not sway her. She hates yellow. It was eminent to me to change the background color, so I chose blue.
It was like I had to start completely over. The background had to be painted several times for the yellow not to show, and it turned out that the hummingbird and the flowers did not pop anymore. I had to re-paint them and change the color of the larkspur. I do not even know if larkspur grew in the new colors I used, but again, this was not a documentary.
Addie did not want yellow anywhere on the painting, so the yellow in the middle of the flowers had to be changed as well.
Addison and her daddy (our son) came over to our house after we ate, and she wanted to wait until I made the necessary changes be-fore so she could take her painting home. That was not going to happen.
Addie called me the next day to ask about the painting. When it was finally finished and framed, her parents brought her over and she got her pain-ting. She told me she loved it, and that made it all worthwhile.
Ava has not seen her painting yet, and I am not sure if I want her to after all this, but I can change hers if she wants me to. All I know is that Addie’s picture finally has a forever home.
Vicki may be contacted at lily200383@yahoo.com.