Another year older, eh? Being the baby give me the joy of being able to always be the youngest, meaning I get to always make fun of my OLD sisters as they are, well, older than me. And since I’m the baby, they are not allowed to hit me. So there. Today is my sister Tara’s birthday. I won’t tell you how old she is today, except to say, OLDER than me!
When we were little, we did not get along very well. Mainly, because I was young enough to be annoying, not cool, when I followed her around trying to copy everything she and her friends did. I remember sneaking into her room when she wasn’t there to secretly play with her doll house, which was cooler than mine simply because it belonged to her (I was NOT allowed to play with HER doll house, except for special occasions).
Luckily, we grew up, and both became super cool.
Because she’s been on my mind a lot lately, and because it is her birthday, I decided to try my hand at painting a portrait of her. Ideally, I would have her here in the flesh to do it, but since we live on opposite sides of the country, it wasn’t possible. I did a sketch to work out the pose I wanted, then hit up my photo collection to gather reference images that were close to the pose.
I didn’t nail the likeness as close as I would prefer, but you can tell its her. Moreover, I love the colors and texture of the piece, and had fun doing it. I wanted to keep working at it, to make it “perfect” and look just exactly like her, but I knew I would risk destroying the liveliness of it. So I let it go. Acrylics on a 9×12 piece of Masonite.
Megan Stringfellow 
Leave a comment