8″x10″ acrylic, 2010. You might think that these hippos are identical, but four-year-old Charlotte can tell them apart — it’s “something about their smiles,” she says. Charlotte also has twin two-year-old sisters, and so having two alike-but-distinct hippos seemed important to her, Charlotte’s grandmother Pat tells me. The quilt was handmade by Charlotte’s other grandmother. I’ve painted several portraits of late that include multiples (or one representative of multiples) of the same toy which are all in circulation at once — very interesting! Pat will give this portrait to Charlotte for Christmas.

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