Goodbye Summer, Hello Fall!
September 2021
Window to The Bay #16
Happy Friday! And Happy Fall! Summer is over, school is back, and with the arrival of fall in San Francisco is warm and sunny summer-like beach weather! I’m grateful though that sunny and warm or foggy and cool, every day of the year in San Francisco can be a beach day if you want it to be. This watercolor beach baby portrait of twin boys on the beaches of New York has been on my mind, as this summer saw the arrival of twin baby nieces - I was honored and delighted to attend their birth. Watching the US Open tennis tournament this September I wore my souvenir t-shirt from the 2001 tournament and gave thanks to twenty years of fresh air and sunshine, remembering clearly with the rest of the nation where I was the day the twin towers came down. It feels like yesterday that I had flown home to the Midwest from a weekend tennis trip to New York City just a day prior to the events of 9-11. As no one can predict what the next day holds, everyday moments like these of sweet babies playing on the beach with their patriotic star studded caps reminds us of life’s daily blessings!
Watercolor Family Portraits
A Westhampton Beach, New York watercolor beach baby portrait as an anniversary gift.
One of the joys of watercolor for me is painting the serenity of the waterfront and the happy family memories of home that take place there. It was a pleasure to paint these sweet twin brothers pictured in their happy place at Rogers Beach in Westhampton Beach, New York as commission by their mom as a wedding anniversary gift for her husband. I was reminded while painting this portrait of a Mary Cassatt print that hung in the bathroom my sister and I used at my grandparent’s home growing up of two sisters at about this same age playing with buckets and shovels on the beach (see “Children Playing on the Beach, 1884” at the National Gallery of Art). The beach attire from over 100 years ago is entirely different, but I hope the sentiment is the same! As a longtime admirer and student of Cassatt’s impressions of moms and children, I’m delighted to extend watercolor family and child portraits to my offerings of watercolor home portraits. Cassatt was a suffragette and early advocate of women’s advancement. Though she had special access into the painting domain of women and children at the end of the nineteenth century as a working female artist, she did not become a mother herself. Perhaps she thought she had to choose? I feel lucky in this day and age to be able to be a mom AND a portrait painter of children and families!
With love for the every day and special days,
Laura Ann Elbogen
P.S. Do you know someone who would delight in capturing the sweet memory of their babies as they grow into children? Forward this post!