My Handsome Son

My oldest son Bill - Click for larger image

As some of you may know, I spent part of my weekend going through 20 years of work in my old flat files. One interesting item I stumbled upon was a 16" x 20" color photo I took of my oldest son when he was only 5 months old. He was just starting to roll around on his stomach and lifting his head to look around at the world. I just loved the photo and took it to a lab for enlargement. But there it sat, tucked away in my flat files for the last 15 years.

As a joke I taped it to the door of his bedroom and waited for his reaction when he went to bed that night. He was startled to say the least . He had no memory of the photo. He, his sister and I looked at it for a bit and we all had a good laugh. I said,"What a beautiful baby you were!". His sister, in an attempt to be funny said, "What happened?".

My son, in all seriousness and almost to himself, said, "I was beaten with an ugly stick." This just crushed me. He is such a confident and positive young man that I hadn't seen this crack in his self esteem. And in the few days that followed I began to think how few drawings, and no paintings, I have done of him. And I recall him commenting on that fact in the recent past as well.

So this morning I did this sketch of him. Hopefully it will be the start of other portraits of my oldest. I want him to know I think he's beautiful (OK, handsome is a more manly word I suppose) and what a fine young man he is, and what a fine adult I know he will become.