Life does imitate art!

Darling daughter, Elizabeth and her husband, Robbie, are here for the Thanksgiving holidays.  This makes me happy in one way but sad in another.  As usual, I am elated to have them here but, then again, it makes me sad knowing that they will not be here for Christmas.  This is the year that they will travel to visit his folks for the Christmas holidays.  So we have had to cram some of our Christmas into these holidays.  On our list of things Christmas related to do this weekend was to paint our octopi!  Last year, (for those who do not remember) we initiated a new annual mother/daughter Christmas tradition.  While other mother/daughter duos were doing things like shopping, we painted.  It was Elizabeth's idea to do this so I gave her the option of choosing what we painted.  She has a great sense of adventure (and humor) so her answer was an excited "Octopi"!  No problem.  I was sure that I could paint something similar to an octopus anyway (hopefully)! We had a blast painting together.  With only one minor incident of spilled paint and a few gallons of coffee, we turned out some pretty decent paintings.  Now, it was time to create again.

The Christmas tradition continues!  My painting of an octopus on top and Elizabeth's on bottom!

After spending the afternoon dabbling in the acrylics (and another incident of spilled paint!), we, once again, were pleased with our paintings. We both did our version of octopi.  I finished mine in a short time.  Elizabeth took longer.  As matter of fact, she is still not quite finished with her painting.  I pondered why I finished so much quicker.  When she took a break, I peeked at her picture.  Ok, that settled that! My painting was extremely different than hers.  It was then that I realized that hers was so much like her while mine did, indeed, imitate me.  Hers is a very elaborate painting that looks near lifelike.  Mine..not so much. My painting is a blend of two colors, black and white.  Hers has a ton of color.  Mine is simple whereas hers is full of detail.  Life imitates art or art imitates life.  She is vibrant, full of life, full of color.  I am less so.  How two paintings of the same thing can be so different explains a lot about the artists doing the creating.  She is meticulous.  I am simple.  Life sometimes truly imitates art..or vice versa.