A couple days after Christmas, I found myself laughing and reminiscing memories that while I wasn’t there as a participant, I heard about, I saw pictures, and having written them down, made me feel a little part of them.

Kari wanted to surprise her parents with something unique. When we first talked there were more than 154 things to fit in 154 square inches of an 11x14in panel. There were important places, favorite things, vacations, sayings, jokes, times together, traditions, quotes; really a lifetime of sweet memories.

She liked this piece I did of a family’s summer road trip tradition:

To give all those recollections a home I first focused in her parents’ favorites: a couple places, a thing, and a memory.

From there we got creative and took pieces from the ideas and made a new one:

A landscape with a Cancun sunrise and Grand Canyon edges nesting the view of the mountains they see often. The Saguaro cactus that welcomes them home, with a cardinal resting there. The memories written all over the foreground dessert.
We really used all we could!

We were playing with many moving pieces and approaching the holiday shipping deadline, so we let the color rough give the idea, lock the elements in place, and gives us a sense of the overall palette to use.

So on to painting, and here is a picture progression of how it went:

When you have to account for drying, varnish time, wrapping and shipping, it felt so good to get it done and sent with enough time to write HOLD FOR CHRISTMAS!

 And, it was ever SO gratifying to get to talk and hear what Kari’s mom & dad thought of their gift.

Surprising parents with a meaningful gift can get difficult, but I think we nailed it on collaging life-memories together.

Is there someone you want to celebrate or a memory that you want to keep alive?
Let’s work together.