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Originally Posted by Thomasin Dewhurst
Four children! And home-schooling! Wow! I only have one and I often feel rather desperate for time to work (let alone rest).
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It really is hard to get time when they are small; though my most productive time for commissions was when I had two in early elementary level homeschooling and a baby. I put one of those baby backpacks to good use. Right now most of my kids are older. I have the ages of 19, 17 (in 12 days), 13 (in two weeks), and a 6 year old. Throw in a 7 year old that I babysit from 3am to 5:30 pm Monday to Friday and you get the idea how busy a place we have here. My kids naturally lean to the quiet, independent, and creative side though; that makes a huge difference. It has been much noisier and active since I started to babysit, which really has turned out to be a lot of fun.
I love being with them, watching them, I have so many moments in my head I want to get out into paint. I am really starting to challenge myself to move more and more away from a posed look and more toward narrative portraiture. Kids have such story-telling moments when you can capture them just being kids. That being said, there is a story behind the painting above with the red shoe. Lawns down here are quite hazardous between the fire ants and the stickers in the grass. Kids just cannot go barefoot with any safety. Murphy's Law says that one shoe always goes missing on a nice day to play outside - especially if everyone else is already out there having fun. Hence the longing look.