When Nana Sings

My longtime mentor and friend Alice Weithoff Blegen wrote a children’s book about the sensitive subject of Dementia and Alsheimer’s. When the call came from her asking me to illustrate the book I couldn’t answer, “YES” fast enough! Of course I was trepidatious about my style and skill level. I sent several “staging” sketches to Alice that were laughable. We settled on a simple ink and watercolor style and all that was left was the work.

Over the next few months I worked at my full time job during the day and drew images at night. Once we had our images settled the painting began. I worked on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil in Procreate. Each step of the process was carefully reviewed by Alice until we finally had everything exactly where we wanted it.

The book came to fruition and the message is a wonderful testament to families going through the slow and tearful process of losing a loved one to Dementia or Alsheimer’s. Alice set the story’s viewpoint from a small boys perspective. At first he is reticent to visit Nana because “she isn’t the same”. As their visit goes on a dejected Henry begins to sing softly under his breath and Nana comes to life proving that music has a remarkable power even when the brain is compromised.