The homestead with children playing,
ducks conspiring, and sisters taking pictures
(painting size 22″ x 30″; click image to view larger)

This has been a fun project to recreate the homestead where my client and her siblings grew up in rural Illinois. She went on a quest to get me photos of the house in sunlight, which became quite a journey for her and her sister. They contacted the current residents and got permission to come out and take pictures, after some initial skepticism about the unknown women who kept calling! (They had the residents check my website to make sure I was legit.) There had been some changes as it had been 50 years since they grew up there, and trees had grown up around the house.

I interviewed my client and heard what the story could be, what about the house was meaningful, and where her siblings played. So began the stories of jumping off the back porch to get on and ride their horses, swinging from the tree in the front yard, and the ducks under the tree that insisted on roosting on the back porch, much to the dismay of my client’s mother! For the painting I “trimmed the trees” a bit so I could see the house as they may have seen it. On the right are the two modern-day sisters wandering around the outside of the house to get pictures for me. I put some sunlight casting shadows across the front to liven things up as it was a happy place for them growing up.

Reference photos provide different views of the house