My grandfather was a banker most of his life, but in his spare time he was an excellent painter and writer, until glaucoma took away his sight. He went blind when I was very young, so I only ever remember him being blind.
He died when I was 8, and despite having very few memories from the time before I was 7, I have very fond memories of my mom’s father. Vô Décio (Grandpa Décio) was a very kind, patient man, and even as a child, I remember thinking that if I were that talented of an artist and lost my sight, I would be very bitter. But he was always “at peace with the world,” as my mom says.
Despite never having seen him paint, I saw many of his paintings adorning the walls of several relatives’ homes back in Brazil. Unfortunately I don’t have any of his paintings, so once when I was visiting my mom, I took a photo of one of them. I use it as the background of my phone. This is a picture of grandpa’s painting; it’s oil on canvas.
The Art of Illustration program at my library last week focused on watercolour pencils, but we were encouraged to use other media that were available if we wanted to add other things.
I decided to create a tribute to my grandpa by re-imagining his painting with mixed media, focusing mostly on watercolour, but I also used wax crayons, HB pencil, and gesso.
I made a bit of an oops with the crayon resist for the clouds, which I tried to fix with the gesso, but no luck. I tried to be a bit abstract with the cloud shape, but that doesn’t really work for resist technique… you have to be deliberate with it. Oh well; I’m still pretty happy with the results.
Of course it doesn’t even come close to my grandfather’s artistic ability, but it’s my little tribute to him, and I like it 
Here are some progress photos.
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