Article taken from the "Herald Net" Everett Washington, October 13, 2006

Claudia Postema adored the youngster clutching Winnie the Pooh. She valued the scene with the eye of an artist.

Postema spent eight years capturing the image on canvas.

The picture was torn from The Herald in 1996. It's a sumptuous fall portrait, with a young girl hugging a stuffed Winnie the Pooh on a hillside strewn with leaves. It was removed with no date and no credit for the photographer who captured the image.

The Everett painter went back and forth to her easel, attempting to get the skin tone and features exactly like the picture.

"I choose my subject matter, drawn by color and shape usually," Postema said. "In this case, I saw this picture from across the room as my husband read the newspaper. I was so drawn to it, I had him save it for me."

Retired from the U.S. Postal Service, Postema first started painting in 1995.

"I knew absolutely nothing," she said. "Everything I painted turned brown because I didn't even know the basics on how to mix and use paint without making brown."

She didn't aim to be a painter in high school in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

"Where the boys are ...," Postema said with a devilish chuckle. "Oh lordy, lordy, it was a beautiful thing."

When college men bombarded the beach on spring break, Postema said she was there in her Volkswagen Beetle, enjoying the view and the parties.

She landed in Everett with the postal service.

"I love it here," Postema said. "I would never have been happy in the South. This is where I was supposed to be."

The mystery of Pooh was easily solved. By scanning microfiche, I discovered that Herald photographer Beth Armstrong took the pretty fall picture. Beth remarkably recalled the child is named Sierra and the father is Tom Russo of Everett.

Reached by phone, Russo remembered when his daughter, now 11, was shown in The Herald. The picture flew here and there to members of his family.

Postema, 57, started painting Sierra about 1998, after taking watercolor classes.

"Actually, there are mistakes in the painting, some I was able to correct, others, well, only I know where they are," Postema said. "I covered them pretty well. When I made a new mistake, I would put her away for awhile."

The most difficult part of the painting was the flesh.

"It's hard to paint unless you have a good teacher," she said. "So it was a learning piece but one I was determined to paint. She is just so much fun. When I finally learned how to paint flesh, it was time to finish it up."

The last stroke captured a speck of light bouncing on Winnie the Pooh's snout.

View her work at watercolorsbyclaudia.com. "Sierra" may be seen at Wise Design at 2908 Wetmore Ave. in Everett.

At Postema's beautifully restored Everett home, her work room is saturated with natural light. She draws from lots of resources: newspapers, photographs, her memory and visions of things she finds in magazines or books.

She has sold her work at art fairs in Edmonds, Bellevue and Everett.

"I have sold either originals or prints of parrots, polar bears and a magnolia," Postema said. "And the boats, birch trees, rooster and turtle."

She aims to offer reasonable prices. Everyone should be able to afford some art, she said.

And perhaps Pooh with a notable nose.