Sweet Sixteenth Birthday in Quarantine

hlezama (67)in #art • 5 years ago

Greetings, everyone
Time is flying even in quarantine. On Sunday, my step-daughter turned 16. When everybody thought that this year would be better, after last year’s humble Quinceañera party, here comes Covid-19 to show us that things can always get worse.

That being said, we made the best of things and had a good time with the resources we had available.

As homage to the most talented young artist I know (painter, singer, musician, writer, crafter) I made this pencil drawing from one of her selfies. Nothing compared to her artwork, which she has been perfecting without any formal training, but that’s my way of telling her I support all the things she does and I love her very much.

I did not take many pictures of the process. This is an early draft:

This is the picture I used as model. Before her mother cut her hair.

We improvised with what we had and in record time her mom worked on a beautiful poster and we gathered some snacks.

Presto!

Some days ago, in one of my outings, I bought a cake mix, which provided us with a tasty cake at a way lower price than the average one.

Her godmother had a beautiful gesture and brought her a cake she made herself. So we ended up with two cakes all for the four of us given the current circumstances. Her friend, Isabela, was on the phone while we sang happy birthday.

We sang happy birthday early in the afternoon, ate our cake as merienda, and watched some movies on the computer. She wanted to watch some of the early Harry Potter movies and that’s what we did. She’s about to finish reading book 7 of the series and is using some of Rowling’s technique to put together her own novel.

She recently read Stephen King On Writing and is using some of King’s advices in the construction of her fictional worlds. I truly admire her discipline and enthusiasm.

She made this card index to keep track of her characters and all. And this is additional to her school work, which she keeps doing.

Some parents complain that their children are driving them crazy because of the quarantine. I just can't undertand how they can't find anything to do. Manuela Valentina is precious gift for us; a reminder of how life’s troubles can be filtered and channeled into positive constructive behavior and attitude.