All Watched Over By Constellations of Loving Grace

The lat­est por­trait to come off my draw­ing table is titled The Hunter Watch­es Over You Always. It is the por­trait of the father of a friend whose father died when she was nine. She is one of sev­er­al peo­ple I’ve known who have expressed a con­nec­tion or affec­ton for the con­stel­la­tion Ori­on. I’ve always liked Ori­on; it’s about the eas­i­est con­stel­la­tion to find in the North­ern Hemi­sphere. But it was­n’t until hear­ing a num­ber of dear friends tell me of their feel­ing for it that I start­ed to regard Ori­on as a guardian. Of course, I don’t believe that an arrange­ment of stars in the sky inter­feres in our lives to pro­tect or harm, but when I look up and see Ori­on there, I think of these peo­ple and tell Ori­on to keep care­ful watch. I don’t believe any­one has ever told me of a sense of con­nec­tion to any oth­er con­stel­la­tion unless it was their zodi­ac sign, and those who have expressed this con­nec­tion to Ori­on are some of my favorite people.

This draw­ing rep­re­sents a lot of my time over the past month. I had only an old, blur­ry pho­to­graph to work from, and I had to enlist the help of one of David S.‘s rel­a­tives to make sure that I was on the right track and that I had some­thing like a like­ness. He tells me that I do, so I can only hope. I think I did more vel­lum drafts on this por­trait than on any oth­er before. 

The first two prints are reserved as gifts. The friend for whom this was under­tak­en has not seen it and does­n’t know that I’ve done this. I hope to give her the print next week. It’s a sur­prise, so don’t tell, OK?