Armand Lombard can’t exactly sit down and write a big check to help the people of Japan as they struggle to recover from last month’s devastating earthquake and tsunami.
But that doesn’t mean the nine-year-old Langley boy is going to just sit quietly and let the grownups handle it.
Instead, Armand picked up his paint brush and went to work.
The budding young artist — whose family moved to Canada from South Africa two years ago — has created a painting which is now being auctioned off as part of Artists for Japan, a Facebook campaign to support the efforts of the Canadian Red Cross in the devastated island nation.
Armand based his painting on one his mother Freda, also an artist, had created, but made the colours his own.
He selected a range of bright jewel-tone colours, from vibrant green to purple, blue and yellow, all of which he mixed from primary colours.
But the focus of the piece is the ‘Twinkle Eye’ for which it is named.
The woman’s red iris is set in the middle of the white of the eye to represent the flag of Japan.
It is lined in silver glitter to give it its ‘twinkle.’
“He painted it on his first easel, said Freda, explaining that her younger son (older brother Reynard is 12) has always liked to draw but only took up painting last October, working alongside his mom in her downstairs studio.
“We try to paint together every day,” she said.
Since he posted the painting on the site with a reserve bid of $8, it has begun to climb, with a top bid of $25 on Monday.
Freda stumbled across the Facebook site and had decided to create a piece of her own to donate when her son expressed an interest in joining her.
“He was ecstatic that his painting would go to help Japan,” said Freda.
To learn more or to bid on a piece of artwork, log onto Facebook and search “Artists for Japan” or http://www.facebook.com/artistsforjapan?ref=ts
