The Source of my Inspiration

=== Title ===
The Source of my Inspiration

=== Description ===
The initial concept for this piece can be contributed to two reasons:

The first reason comes from two My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes in Season 1, namely Episode 23: The Cutie Mark Chronicles and Episode 2: Elements of Harmony.

For those of you who don't know, Episode 23: The Cutie Mark Chronicles showed the back-story of Pinkamena Diane Pie (or "Pinkie Pie" as we normally refer to her). Pinkie Pie grew up with an Amish-like family on a rock farm, where she worked the field moving rocks each day with her family. In this episode she makes note of how there was never any smiling or laughter, just rocks.
However, in the second episode of the first season, Elements of Harmony, there's a part where she speaks about her "Grammy Pie" and how she taught Pinkie Pie to laugh at the things that scares her.
Placing these two episodes side by side makes it seem that even though Pinkie Pie grew up in a place without any smiling, fun and laughter, she was still inspired by her grandmother a lot, a pony who probably tried her best to make sure her grandchildren were happy, even though she was set back by being in such a drab and dreary place.
The image then, represents Pinkie Pie's grandmother turning the rocks, the very concept of Pinkie Pie's sadness and boredom, into a fun activity the two of them can share together.


The second reason is that this is pretty much a picture-perfect representation of how I took my first steps into the field of art.
When I was young, we usually went to visit my grandma Anna in her sleepy and secluded town on the west coast of South Africa. It was a hot and quiet place, with nothing more than houses, general stores, some farmlands and a church.
Lacking in what some might call "quality entertainment", she made due with what she had to always insure her grandchildren were smiling, happy and entertained.
She succeeded at that task with flying colors. In every memory of my childhood spent with her in the small town in the middle of nowhere, I was never bored or unhappy.

It was here during my early childhood where my grandma Anna would take me and my sister into the kitchen, prepare various snacks and drinks for us, take out various pens, pencils and scrap paper and just sit with us for the rest of the afternoon, paying close attention to us as we drew the day away. It was at that tiny kitchen table that she showed me the magic of drawing and creation, and what you can do if you let your imagination go free.
As long as I was sitting next to her at that kitchen table, I never wanted to stop drawing.

My grandma Anna is, without a doubt, the source of my inspiration.

Two weeks ago, on the Friday of the 2nd of December 2011, Anna Maria van der Westhuizen was laid to rest in her hometown of Porterville.
She had passed away in the early Monday morning of the 28th of November 2011.
She was 73 years old.
She had fought a hard and painful battle with kidney failure and surpassed the expectations of her doctors by soldiering on for longer than they had expected, sharing joy, laughter and inspiration to those around her even on her final days on earth.
Before her passing I made it clear to her what a beacon of inspiration she is to me, how immensely proud I am to have her as my grandmother and that most of what is good about me I can contribute to her being a part of my life.

If I can have one request for anybody reading this or viewing the picture, it is the following: If you have someone who inspires you, don't hesitate to let them know it. You might miss the opportunity someday and regret it.


Rest in Peace
Anna Maria van der Westhuizen
1938 ~ 2011

'My Little Pony Friendship is Magic' and all related characters belong to Hasbro

~ JK

===Tools Used===
CorelDRAW

===Art Notes===
For some reason, this took near forever to finish.
It may have been a combination of art-burnout and work fatigue as well as the image having a fair amount of detail. But in the end, I wanted to make sure everything look as great as it could, so there's that as well.
I drew the initial sketch at work, but to be honest, most of Pinkie Pie was redone using heavy references, her body is a lot smaller that you think it is.
The background is a 90% reproduction of the background in Episode 23 (with some tweaks), as well as using the episode to get as much reference for the inner workings of her house.
Grammy Pie I designed to look like an older version of Pinkie Pie. She has Pinkie Pie's modern hairstyle (tied back in this case) as well as her color scheme being just a 40% - 50% fade of Pinkie Pie's color scheme. (Probably due to old age)
I purposely covered Grammy Pie's cutie mark, to leave it up to the imagination.