Try as I might, I can’t quite imagine my mother as a very young woman (never mind draw her). She was in her late teens when she left Germany and went to London to learn English, kick off her plans to travel (Italy and Spain were to be the next countries she’d conquer), learn languages, and take photographs of the people and places she encountered… She had cat-eye glasses, a stylish haircut, and wore poodle skirts. Madness. The mother I knew mother never wore skirts!
There is an incident famous in the family vault of stories in which my parents meet at a party hosted by art students. The scene takes place in a seedy (cheap) flat in London where Dad and a couple of other art school students are roommates.
A couple of somber paintings (“…grey on grey, dark, dreary things…” as my mother later described them) hung on the wall. Sitting on the settee beside my father, Mom famously declared, “Whoever painted those must be a miserable soul. So depressing.” Dad didn’t let on, at first, that he was the perpetrator, but prompted her to say why she had come to that conclusion…
I don’t know the details of her further artistic analysis (except that it was unflattering), but when he finally confessed, she didn’t back down. She stood by her guns, unafraid to express her opinion. By the end of the evening, so the story goes, they were smitten.
For the next few days I’m going to work on finding a suitable characterization/drawing/sketch for my mother - she was, after all, the love of Dad’s life and a force to be reckoned with. If I don’t come up with something suitable, she will haunt me and make my life truly miserable :)
After she develops a bit, I’ll also post a photo from about that era and you can let me know what you think… I’ll also try to render that infamous scene on the London couch. I’ve got my work cut out for me!