anticipation or instinct?

During our 2006 summer vacation back home, we dropped by Tam-awan Village after the family's Asin swimming. I was a no-first timer to this place however it was my first time to see the artists stationed there and offering sketch services to the place's visitors. We took a quick look at the displayed images but decided to head to the coffee shop first as we were all famished. Then my sisters went back to the artists' post and asked my niece to pose. At first, we thought only one artist will work on the subject but it turned out that two guys actually got their papers and pens and started to chalk out my niece who was behaved well during the entire course.

Thinking that our daughter may be not be willing to be seated for a long time, we didn't follow suit. But after my niece's sketches were completed, we eventually decided to have Jade take the subject's seat. For few minutes, she kept still and behaved well but realizing the absence of entertainments around her made her start to get bored and attempted to get free from mommy's arms. The other artists then started to make different sounds and actions to make her calm. Everyone noticed a cat around so they called feline near the artists sketching her such that they could still take a look at her face. Finally, the wait was over.

At that time, Jade had very short hair and may have even looked more like a boy so we were grinning to see how the sketched looked like. Expecting us to question it, the two artists explained to us right away that they lengthened her hair so that she'll appear girlish. We were pleased for the consideration they regarded. Somehow, it made sense to us. We brought her sketches with us here in Taiwan and having no space to display it in our small apartment, they were kept in our document storage bin.

The younger artist displaying Jade's sketch

Jade: Who is that? She doesn't look like me at all!

The senior artist finishing touches!
Jade: Mommy, bring me down! I want to go play with Manang.

We didn't think of it until several weeks ago, hubby asked me to look at Jade as he exclaimed “she looks like the painting now!” I asked him what painting he was talking about and he told me “the one from Baguio”. It took me a while to pick up what he was saying until I realized “ah, the sketches from Tam-awan.” I stared at our daughter and seconded Dennis statement about her now looking like the way she was sketched six months ago. I opened my online album after that and realized that she looked more like the sketch done by the younger artist compared to that of the other guy. (I forgot their names, they have etched it in the papers but I'm too lazy to dig them now.)

Closer look at the 1st artist's piece.

Jade looks closely to this.

Jade's latest studio picture

Doesn't her hairdo resemble the sketch?

Nah, she was too serious she didn't even smile.

Now, did the artists anticipate that she'll eventually sport that kind of hairdo or was it a father's instinct they exhibited there? Hmmnn, I'm not even sure if they are family men. But no matter what, we appreciate it.