I found my mind was shut down. I was 75 years old and could no longer work in my profession as a real estate agent, I could barely do the everyday essentials of taking care of myself for a few years. When cancer took my daughter Carole Suzanne I was at a virtual stand still.

But my daughter Pamela who is a psychiatrist who everyday was helping people similar, got me painting again after not touching an artist painting brush since I was 17 years old.

To encourage me she sent a set of French oil paints, brushes, and an easel to my home in Venice Florida. Well…..her effort worked. And I spent 6 months painting my first portrait of her daughters (and my granddaughters) Evin Nicole and Sarah Christina replicating the picture on the Christmas card she had sent.

The above is the Christmas card and below is my first portrait after over 60 years of not painting.

And this is my two little  granddaughters as they look today all grownup.
Sarah and Evin

Seeing she loved that painting, had it framed and hung it in her living room gave me the courage to continue with others.

So I decided…….OK, now I’ll paint a portrait of her using a little black and white snapshot showing her in the tap dance outfit she wore in a program at her dance school.

After several weeks of drawing, painting over and over (you can do that with oil paints) adding what I thought were special touches, I sent her a picture of my prize completed portrait that I was very proud of. And here it is:

How you like???????????

My daughter hated it!!!!!!!!! And looking back I can see why. Now……I don’t like it either. I must have drifted back into my sorrow phase of loosing my daughter Carole Suzanne who we all called by her nickname Susie.

So now I start over, working in a much lighter mood and after a few months this is what I came up with:

SHE LOVED IT, framed it and hung it in her living room in Salem Ohio. So Mom done good!!!

But who really did good was my Psychiatrist daughter Dr Pamela Dawn Drake. She got her depressed mother moving again and now at age 93 I have painted over twenty portraits. that currently hang in family homes in Montana, Ohio, Georgia and in Florida where I am living with my daughter Pamela and her husband Tracy Drake in their home in the gated community of Deer Creek Sarasota.

You can check my blogs to see pictures of that home including my private rooms of bedroom, studio for painting and my private bathroom.

I lived in my own home until September 20, 2015, last year when after selling my condo home in Highland Creek Salem Ohio I flew here I currently live with my daughter Pamela And her husband Tracy Drake in beautiful Sarasota Florida.

After living in Venice Florida 28 years before moving to Salem Ohio in April of 2006, I am now back home and consider myself VERY FORTUNATE!!!!

FRF ❤️