„Für Andrea“ Elfe mit Zitronenbaum 01

Portrait of a female elf I painted for my German teacher in Granada's Official Language School (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Granada), Andrea Skorepova. Pencil, ink and digital painting.

This elf is slightly based on Andrea (her hair, the colour of the shirt and how I think she'd look if she was an elf, and if she was part of a manga and when she was younger).

And the lemon tree is based on one of her trees (she gave us lemons, and I planted the seeds so I could grow my own lemon tree from hers, which is already growing by now).

Learning German was something my grandfather (who passed away many years ago) and mi fiancée always told me I would love. I have been feeling like a living corpse for more than five years when I lost her. She studied here and I even think Andrea was her teacher too, but she's not here anymore to be asked about it.

This summer I dreamt about my fiancée telling me I should learn German "you always loved Germanic cultures, and the barbarians. And you love learning. "It is a must for you!", she uttered!

I finally tried German, and I ended up loving the language and learning a lot. Even if it's ten times harder than English.
In large part I managed due to Andrea's patience and good work and affection for me and the rest of her students (I made friends with Jesús, the eldest of my classmates, whose patience and wisdom are always welcome, and who tries to understand my troubled mind).

Andrea is the kind of teacher I try to be for my own students, so I know that meeting her was destiny.

Andrea encouraged me to draw more too, and to improve, since I haven't drawn something taking it serious (polished, finished) for a huge while.
I just could not find the strength.

I even think I found "love" in class with a girl I met, after all these years withot even being able to pose my eyes on a woman, but I am not quite sure about this, as people nowadays are totally mad.
I dreamt about this girl (not what you are thinking) as I did many years before meeting my fiancée, and got to even draw her by memory, but I don't think I will upload it anywhere, though, as she acts weird to me, even with contempt.

Who knows, as I'm on other things right now. It just hurts to even think about anything else but painting right now.

I don't know if I will be good in German, but I will keep trying.

Danke für alles, Andrea. Bis bald. Ich hoffe, du hilfst den Menschen weiter so wie bisher.