Keeping the Creative Juices Flowing

I like to consider myself a creative person.  It seems to be when I am in my most zen-like state of being.  I took a lot of art classes in high school and I had intended upon going on to pursue art as a career... my goal was to work as a comic book artist.  Alas, I allowed myself to be talked out of it by people around me.  I put down my pencils and for several years did nothing more than doodle in the margins of my notebooks and meeting notes at work.  Over the past year though I have started to feel the itch again and I've started to rekindle my love of art and I've picked up my pencils again.

For quite a while I was heavily involved in photography and digital imaging.  I loved creating images and then modifying them in Photoshop.  A couple of years ago I was handed two tattered old photographs that belonged to my Grandmother-in-law and was asked if I could somehow restore them.  I said I would try...

The first was relatively easy and I was able to bring it back to life quickly...




















The other one was not going to be as easy and it has sat for a couple of years never making past the scanning stage.

With her 90th birthday coming up it was decided that I should make a run at restoring it. In the photo is, of course, her, but along with her are her two older sisters, her older bother and her parents.  Her younger brother had not yet been born.

So here is the original...

...and here is the progress I have made over the last few days...

I've got a couple of more days to finish it.  It's going to be a surprise so hopefully I can make it worthy of it.