Childhood Memories, 16"x20", Digital Oil Painting by Melody Nathan
In keeping with the theme of my most recent body of work, which is focused on childhood memories, I took a trip to my Mom's house to dig through her cedar chest. Inside this prized chest, I knew there would be many many great memories to choose from. As I rummaged through the stacks, I stumbled into this scene of my brother and I playing in the Wyoming air. The dead grass, the cloth jacket on my brother, our rosy cheeks, my reflective jacket and plaid pants, all screamed to me.
One of the most challenging aspects of working on this project was drawing a younger version of myself. I instinctively made myself look as I see myself today, which is a much much older version of me than the little girl dancing in this memory. On the flip side, when I attempted to bring in more childlike features I found myself accidentally drawing my daughters face.
Ultimately, I do feel like I achieved a likeness of my young self, but it was not without many hours of reworking.
I really wanted to incorporate some kind of reminder of the dead grass into the piece, thus the mustardy brown background color the portrait began with. I decided to lighten up this mirky color toward the end of the process to really help the highlights pop.
A time-lapse of my process is available below.