Artist rendition of Ida Sofia Strandberg using information, photos and drawings provided by the blog’s author.
Unless you’ve had a regression done before, you’ll never understand the frustration of seeing something remarkable and not being able to show it to others. Apart from the ability to fly, I’d trade any superpower the universe could bestow upon me for the ability to show people what I saw in my regressions: The beautiful landscapes, the detail of people’s faces. Even Titanic’s photographs cannot do her justice. You can’t see her the way that I saw her.
Ida was the same way. I’ve seen her face a thousand times, but no one else has. Her family has died off. There are no photos of her. She’s been left behind and forgotten. As Rose would say in Cameron’s Titanic: “Exists now, only in my memory.” Ida is the same. All that saw her face are gone. She’s a name on a roster, buried under countless others while names like Astor and Guggenheim are paraded around by bureaucrats who forget there were thousands aboard Titanic, not just the wealthy and famous.
I wanted to show people her face. Thanks to my new cousin, Rose, I got the opportunity. She led me to artbreeder.com. It is a site to digitally create portraits. Most use it to make a portrait of a fanfiction character. I spent a few weeks making my digital portrait of Ida. I did notice however that the database would only let me go so far. If I lightened her hair to make it appear more blonde, it also changed the color of her eyes to blue. Adding a red tint to get the honey blonde color, made her eyes appear green. It was a mess. I could never get the shape of her eyes right either. I gathered the information and photos of features that needed to be altered.
I decided to splurge a little and contact an artist to make a mock-up of her face. Though I can see her face in perfect detail, I do not possess the skill needed to draw a portrait of her. I contacted various artists on Etsy and found one that could combine the information I gathered and create a realistic-looking portrait of Ida. I knew from the beginning that I wanted it done in oil paint on canvas. The portrait took a few weeks and I was able to watch the stages of progress. I am very pleased with the work pictured above.