My husband and I were foster parents to a boy who’s Mother had passed away when he was 5 years old and whose Father and extended family were not able at the time to care for him. He entered the foster care system and eventually, at the age of 11 he came to us. He was with us for just over 3 years and is now living happily with his late Mother’s sister. For the sake of simplicity we will call him Jack. This is not his name.
When Jack came to us it was obvious that he enjoyed arts and crafts. He attended a pottery class for a while and came home with some wonderful creations, most of which are still on display in our cabinet. Soon the time came for Jack to celebrate his bar mitzvah (when a boy is called to the Torah in the congregation for the first time on his 13th birthday). I reminded his that invitations needed to be sent and recounted how our own son had sketched the picture that went on his invitation. After some time procrastinating Jack approached me with a photo of his late Mother and said that he wanted to paint that for his bar mitzvah and asked would I help him to do it.
We gave ourselves a bit of a head start – I printed the picture on three A4 sheets which we then taped together to give us the right size for our canvas. Using the glass door for backlight we traced the outline of the figure on the canvas.
I was not a diligent about photographing the process as I should have been and I confess to being less than satisfied at one point with her face so I snuck in at night and tinkered with it myself. Jack did all the scenery, but again I could not help myself and tinkered with the rocks. Jack gave the large painting to his brother for a wedding present and we printed the Bar Mitzvah invitations from a photograph of it. The Pictures below more-or-less tell the story:
It was a great co-operative experience – and a privilege to help a son honoring the beloved mother he barely remembered at one of the most important points of his young life.