Vacation out East - circa 1959

After taking a little time away while having guests over Christmas and then a quick trip to South Dakota to visit the in-laws, I’m back on my painting-from-old-slides kick. This is my great aunt Fran with her kids Mary Fran and Jimmy. They went on a trip out east with my great aunt Marge around 1959, here they are waiting at a bus or train station.

Vacation out East - acrylic on 12x12 in. gessobord 

Original photo:

Fran, Mary Fran and Jimmy- from slide collection of Marge Koppi

Rooney

Here’s another Christmas commission I can post now- this is Rooney!

Rooney - acrylic on 12x12 in. gessobord 

Knick-knacks

I'm still on a roll with these paintings from old family slides. Here is another one of my great grandma Theresa Koppi, circa late 1950's.  I'm having so much fun painting these!

Knick-knacks - acrylic on 12x12 inch gessobord

Marge Koppi

I'm having so much fun painting these old slides. This one is my Great Aunt Marge Koppi, from whom all the slides came. She was wonderful at documenting life via photos and super 8 movies, and she kept them all so organized and clearly labeled for posterity. She never married or had children of her own, but she loved all her nieces and nephews and her great-nieces and nephews so much and was very involved and interested in their lives. She was funny and always had a twinkle in her eye. She used to often call me a "little Dickens". When my cousins and I moved away from home and went off to college, she used to make us her signature popcorn cakes (like a popcorn ball, but in cake form, with lots of gum drops), and mail them to us. I wish she were still with us, because I think she'd get a kick out of her old slides turning into paintings.  Incidentally, I named my cat Koppi (pronounced "KO-pee") after her.

I don't think my painting particularly looks like her (see reference photo below), but at this point I'm just excited it looks like a human. :)  Hopefully getting resemblance will come with more practice.

Marge Koppi - acrylic on 12x12 in. gessobord

Original photo. Isn't she lovely?

Great Grandma Koppi

Venturing out with another person painting here. This is my great grandma Koppi, in the '50s. Our lives didn't intersect at all - she died years before I was born. My grandma told me this photo was taken in her sister's basement. (And my grandma still has that rocking chair!) I think it was for a family Easter gathering, based on the other slides nearby in the same box. I have a ton of old family slides from my great aunt Marge, so I'm looking forward to scanning and painting more of them in the future.

I was hesitant (aka scared) to paint the print on her dress and was tempted to leave it plain, but I'm glad I went for it because I think it adds a lot to the painting.

In retrospect I think the wall and the floor are a little too "warm", compared to the cooler/grayer tones of the original photo. Something to keep in mind for the next one.

Great Grandma Koppi - acrylic on 12x12 inch gessobord panel

Reference photo - Theresa Koppi, from the photo collection of Marge Koppi

Mid-Century Christmas

And now for something completely different... I really adore the mid-century style and thought it’d be fun to try painting a mid-century painting. I haven’t painted a person before, it was fun to try! I have a bunch of my great aunt Marge’s old slides from the ‘50s and ‘60s, so up next I hope to try painting some of my ancestors in their natural mid-century surroundings.

White Gloves - acrylic on 12x12 in. canvas

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Pia 2019

This is my little niece, Pia (aka "Peepers"). She was one of the first pet portraits I ever painted back when I started painting, you can see my earlier attempt here.

Pia - acrylic on 8x8 inch cradled gessobord