Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever. - Psalm 107:1
"Baby Annie", 9x12", pastel on paper by Annie Dash Studios
There is something uniquely tender about painting a portrait of someone you have known your entire life.
Especially when that person is yourself.
This is a pastel portrait of me as a baby, recreated from this old childhood photograph. In the photograph, I am sitting on the floor with my teddy bear, wearing a little white dress and bonnet. I have that wonderfully serious baby expression—the kind that makes you wonder what could possibly have been going through my mind.
Looking at this little girl now, so many decades later, feels a little like looking through a window into another life.
Before I knew who I would become
When I look at this portrait, I don't just see a baby.
I see the beginning of a story.
This little girl had no idea what her life would hold. She didn't know she would grow up to become an artist. She didn't know she would spend years studying visual arts, photography, and the craft of creating portraits. She certainly didn't know that one day she would sit down with a piece of pastel paper and attempt to capture her own childhood likeness.
She simply existed in that moment—holding her stuffed animal, wearing her little dress, and looking out at the world.
And that is part of what makes old photographs so precious.
They give us a glimpse of moments we can no longer return to.
Why I love portraiture
As an artist, I have always been fascinated by the challenge of capturing more than someone's physical likeness.
A good portrait should feel like a person.
There is a subtle difference between reproducing a face and creating a portrait that conveys something about the person behind it—their expression, personality, innocence, strength, tenderness, or joy.
With a photograph as my reference, I can study those tiny details: the expression in the eyes, the shape of a smile, the way light falls across a face.
But working in pastel allows me to interpret those details in a very different way.
There is softness and intimacy in the medium. Every stroke is placed by hand. The finished piece becomes more than a copy of a photograph. It becomes a piece of artwork created to preserve a memory.
A portrait becomes an heirloom
Perhaps that is why creating this portrait of myself has made me think so much about heirlooms.
A photograph can preserve a moment beautifully. But a hand-created portrait has another kind of presence.
It carries the artist's hand.
It can hang on a wall and become part of the story of a family. Years from now, someone who never knew the person in the photograph can still look at the portrait and wonder about them.
Who was this little girl?
What was she like?
What dreams did she eventually have?
What did her life become?
Those are the questions that make portraits meaningful to me.
Preserving the people we love
This is ultimately why I love creating fine art portraits for other families, too.
Our lives are filled with ordinary moments that we don't realize are extraordinary until they have passed.
A baby grows into a child.
A child becomes a young adult.
A family changes.
Parents grow older.
And suddenly, we wish we could hold on to a particular moment just a little longer.
Portraiture gives us a way to do that.
It allows us to take something fleeting—a face, an expression, a season of life—and transform it into something tangible that can be enjoyed for generations.
I look at this portrait with gratitude for the life I've been given, the passions and talents I've cultivated, and the most precious people who are all part of my story.
This little girl is part of my story.
And now, decades after that childhood photograph was taken, she has become part of my artwork, too.
I'm grateful I had the opportunity to paint her.
Because sometimes the people we most need to remember are the ones we were ourselves.
Some memories deserve to become art.
If you're interested in commissioning your own custom pastel portrait, please get in touch!
Annie Dash Studios is a portrait artist, painter, and photographer serving New Albany, Indiana and beyond with heirloom fine art pastel, acrylic, and watercolor paintings, and fine portrait photography.