Happy Birthday to Pat Torok

Deb Dougherty had seen us at the Lakewood Arts Festival. After seeing some of Norms portraits, Deb started to come up with an idea for her Mom's 80th birthday. Deb and her siblings wanted to do something very special.

Deb and her sister Mary came over to brainstorm a couple of ideas for a painting for her mom. Combing through their family pictures the sisters realized that it would be great to have a portrait of their mom and dad together.

 This was the photo they liked.

They liked the expression of their dad. It captured his sense of humor and his coffee mug that was usually in his hand. But Deb and Mary soon realized that their mother's eyes were closed. Deb reported that she usually complained when the camera captured her that way. At first we worked to paint the eyes opened but it seemed unnatural. Something else was not working.

So we asked for more pictures.  Deb brought us several more. So we out of the second group of pictures we picked this one.

Deb assured me this photo was a good capture of how her mom looked.

Well she even had the same earrings.

 Using the two above photos for reference, Norman came up with the following painting for Pat's birthday.

Here is a portrait of Art and Pat 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

 with love from Deb, Mary, Michael, Chris, Joe and Katie

We thank Deb and her family for this wonderful opportunity of doing their parents portrait.

Hope to See You There!

For the Love of Painting

When Norman isn't working on a clients portrait, he works on his own stuff. 

The blossoms on our magnolia tree were so beautiful this past spring I asked Norman to photograph the tree. The blossoms seem to last only but a week and then the leaves take over. So it was a nice surprise to find that Norman decided to paint them later. Now I can have a bit of my favorite part of spring all year long.

Here Norman did a painting of salt and pepper shakers that stood out of the clutter on our kitchen table. I was amazed how such everyday items could make a fun painting. The shakers look quite formidable here and seem to have a personality all of there own.

This is his most recent work. After Norman did a house portrait for a client he work on this one that was inspired by one of the many lake cottages in the quaint resort town of Lakeside, Ohio.

Since many of these interim paintings are not the direct result of work that he does for Your Precious Portraits, he now has another website: http://norman-drake.artistwebsites.com where you can find prints of his work for sale.

The nice thing about this site is that you not only can purchase a print, but you can choose size, paper, format, mat color, and what kind of framing. You also can purchase greeting cards of his work as well.

If your in the mood to shop check us out at: http://fineartamerica.com/shop/norman-drake.html

Portrait Celebrates 50th Wedding Anniversary

T H E   G R O U D L E   H O U S E

 Home of Sandy and Glen Groudle

To celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Sandy and Glenn Groudle, David and Tim Groudle and their wives Heather and Sue, got together to commission a home portrait for their parents. The family knew that Sandy always wanted a painting of the family home. A home of many happy memories. 

So here is their gift to their loving parents and in-laws. To Sandy and Glen Groudle:

HAPPY 50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!

The Beauty of the Cleveland Metroparks

One of the things that impressed me upon moving to Cleveland many years ago was the richness and beauty of the Cleveland Metroparks. I forgot about this painting Norman did, until we adding some prints to sell for the Art Festivals we are participating in over this summer.

This is of the Rocky River near the Lorain Bridge. It always amazing me that such a serene place exists below the clutter of homes, highways, traffic and strip malls of Cleveland and its suburbs.

In Memory of Jean Lowry

I had received a call from Ernie Lowry. He wife had recently passed away and he wanted a portrait to be done in her memory.

He had a three by five photograph, that was taken of them many years ago, that he had treasured.

Although he had many photographs of her, this particular photo meant much more to him. 

Before he knew about Your Precious Portraits, he paid to have the section of the photograph of his wife enlarged as you see here and framed. But with older photos you can only enlarge so much before you loose detail.

The photo was cropped, retouched, enlarged to 8" X 10", matted and framed.  He paid $400 for the work done to create the 8" X 10" photo. Needless to say he was very disappointed. 

So from an image no larger than half the size of three by five photo, Norm went to work. 

For the same investment, Mr Lowry got a painting! 

For us we got to meet with a wonderful man who loves his wife and misses her dearly. We got to hear his story about the love his wife and the wonderful woman she was.

Thank you Ernie, for telling your story and giving us the opportunity to do this painting.

For a closer look of the painting click here.

Photo Diary of the Festival

This past week was a hot one! 

I took off a week from work to work all the harder to help Norman get ready for the Festival of the Arts at St. John's Medical Center. This was Friday morning the first day of the show. 

Our tents had to be up and ready by 9:30.

Norm is EXHAUSTED! 

We started Thursday afternoon and thought we would stroke out in the heat and be found in the goose poop by the pond.

Our tent is now complete and it is looking like rain. Here is the first peek inside.

Norm hinged 3 doors together and painted them with 3 shades of light green. The doors added more display space in our tent. 

I also displayed some prints of his photography in my grandmother's old wicker suitcase.

More matted prints of Norm's work are displayed in the opposite corner.  As the day progressed and the skies cleared I moved them out by the front.  

The plastic white lattice that we used for the sides of the tent worked well for hanging more paintings. 

It gave the tent a gazebo feeling.

So here is our tent and we are finally ready and waiting for our first customer.

This can't be our first customer?!?

The geese kept us company and searched for droppings of kettle corn from the passers by. 

But, thank God, our first customers started to arrive. 

My turn to guard the fort. 

I kept to the shade when the sun came out.  Unfortunately our tent was in the sun unlike the lucky ones that had shelter under the trees. 

Sun block was a must!

I think this was our youngest customer.  What a cutie!

 This is a shot of the many tents under the trees that lined the walking path on the St. John's Medical Campus.

At Sunday's close the artisans packed up and left the trails for our geese companions.

All in all, the festival turned out well. The sun came out and it cooled down enough that many people came out to visit.

We met many wonderful people.

I hope to be telling their stories through Norm's future illustrations. 

Creating our Banner for the Festival of the Arts

It suddenly dawned on me while in this frenzy of getting work printed, matted and framed for our show this weekend, that we had no identity for our little white tent in the sea of many white tents that wind around the walking trails on the St John's medical campus.

I had spotted a banner hanger a the local Pat Catan's and felt I could adapt it to my purpose. The next step would be designing the banner. Since we can print on canvas that solved my first problem.

Designing it to fit our logo and be seen was another. The hanger is not particularly wide so as you can see I designed one for a vertical look.

The banner measures 14" X 36"

I designed it so it can be viewed from both sides.

I pray this will do the trick. Meanwhile Norm is getting our work ready for the show. Our studio is only half completed. Folding doors for the tent to hang paintings on tower in my living room accompanied by a large folding table where I am matting prints.

Somehow this does not feel like vacation. All the same I am excited.

Summer Memories

There is a saying that summer is half over after the 4th. I always sigh when I hear that. I have so many fond memories of summer. Norman painted the above picture from a photo he snapped while we were up in Lakeside, Ohio capturing the quaintness of a long lazy small town summer. I asked him to do a painting of it so I can hold on to summer even in the cold Cleveland winters.

The old wicker chair reminds me of my grandmother, another warm memory in of itself. I can almost hear the sounds of summer from this painting: kids playing, birds chirping, lawnmowers with their distant hum. Oh how I love summer. Thanks Norman for capturing a bit of it for me.

To see Norman's original photo click here: original photo and take a tour through Norm's photo gallery.

Norman Drake's Newest Painting

I discovered Lakeside, Ohio two years ago when I went on a retreat for the Artists Way through and artist friend Wendy Fedan. I had a wonderful time! Although it is a woman's retreat Wendy allowed Norman to join and photograph the group. From some of his photos Norm did this painting of where some of our classes where held along Lake Erie. For me it is so nice to have a painting of a treasured time at Lakeside.