Rosemary

This is Rosemary. We met in architecture school at Texas A&M and became good friends.

Doing this portrait was like searching back through the past for her. I kept getting things wrong and scrubbing them out, erasing, redrawing, painting again, splashing water on it. Finally, I put the floor plan over her and searched again with my pencils and brushes until there she was, smiling up at me, saying "here I am, old friend".

Rose lives in Montana. For a few months, about 20 years ago, we both lived there at the same time and I would pop over to see her and her husband fairly often. Since I moved away, we adopted a tradition of calling each other on our birthdays to check in and keep in touch. Just a reminder Rose, my birthday is coming up.

11x15 pencil, ink and watercolor on handmade watercolor paper. #197