Ancestry

Union   watercolor    20 x 11

Having your DNA tested seems to be the thing these days.  My results did not yield any surprises from that which I suspected.  There is a bit of an excitement, however, in the discovery of a linkage, a past history, often disrupted by modern life and especially by the immigration of our relatives to these United States, where family tree lineage often comes to a screeching halt.  As a result of this renewed interested, we sifted through old photos to see what we actually had.

Vintage photos are wonderful to use as painting references!  The photos can be interpreted without fear of achieving exact likenesses or making Aunt Maude look 10 pounds too heavy.  I like to use them monochromatically as a study of value.  By subtracting color from the mix, one is able to fully understand the great power of value in description. 

The photo of the valiant soldier at the right was labelled on the back as "Pas Eisenhour",  from my husband's family, who fought for the Union in the Civil War from Lebanon, Pennsylvania.