As we begin another weekend in our new reality, I wanted to share what my grandpa and I have been working on to stay busy while social distancing as much as possible.
First, a little background story. Several months ago, I started what I thought would become a tradition, making dinner for my mom and Pa (my grandpa) once a week at his house. On Wednesdays, I visited my grandpa to catch up, listen to old country music, and make a hearty slow-cooker soup for him and my mom for later in the evening. The slow-cooker tradition didn’t have time to become a tradition once the pandemic started.
Collaboration Starts
I knew in the back of my mind that our weekly hangout would end soon with all of the news of this new virus people were calling “The Corona”, so I started thinking of alternative ways to keep the momentum of our visits going without me having to go over to his house for an extended time. As we sat at his dining room table for the last time before shutdowns and quarantine, I passed by the idea of us collaborating on a series of paintings, and he was totally on board. I brought a canvas along with me that day (fingers crossed he was up for it) and sketched my first underdrawing on the spot—I figured that way, we’d both have an idea of how the collaboration would look and what I’d contribute and how he’d finish the artwork from there. Moving forward, the plan was for me to draw a very loose sketch of whatever old photo we wanted to recreate on canvas, I’d drop the canvas with the sketch off at his house, and then he’d paint in all the details (using his memory and imagination for the color palette since most of the images were in black and white).
Our Process
We looked through the photographs in his book, Remembering and Rambling On, to get an idea of what images to focus on recreating first, and true to his desire for a good project, a challenge, and his attention to detail, he gravitated towards photos with structures like houses and the farm. We ultimately decided to start with a photograph of the house my grandma grew up in, in Peever, SD.
Now
It’s been one month ago, today, since our last in-person Wednesday check-in, on March 11th, the day we started this project together. Now, we have five pieces in progress!
The main photo here is the first painting we finished. I hope you enjoy it.
Britt
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