These artists are making free paintings and sketches of the houses of the people lost in the Los Angeles fires.

Jordan Heber cannot return their homes to people, so he’s doing his best.

Los Angeles’s wife is painting images in watercolor for people, for free, of their homes that were destroyed in recent fires. And she is not alone.

“It’s immortalizing something they lost,” said Heber. As it happens Nil Kuddlesal presenter. “You can’t get it back. But, in a way, it’s almost trying to do it.”

The fires that angels have devastated during the last month have killed more than two dozen people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures. According to Cal Fire.

“Brought a ray of light”

When Heber first published about his idea on Tiktok, He thought he would receive requests from a handful of people from his own social circle.

“And then he took off. He went viral and I felt stunned,” he said.

Heber, who works full time as a brand strategist, says he has been flooded with applications, some people who lost their own houses, others looking for watercolors for their friends and family who lost their own.

He said Wednesday that until now he has completed three watercolors and that he is working on about 25 more, giving priority to the requests of people who were directly affected by the fires.

But the first one he did was not a house at all.

“They approached and said, you know, I am a teacher here and we lost the school, and it is simply devastating that these children do not have a place where to go to school. It was very moving to listen to it and wanted help,” he said.

The teacher, she says, was immensely grateful for the painting.

“He said that basically his tears skipped and that he was very happy and that brought him a ray of light.”

Each image tells a story.

Heber says he was inspired to act For an Instagram post by another Los Angeles artist which offered to draw sketches of people’s houses for free.

Like Heber, Asher Bingham says he only expected his publication to reach friends of friends.

“I thought, if I do 10, if I do 20 houses, it would be a great gift,” Bingham told CBC.

Two weeks later, he received more than 1000 applications and continues to count.

“It’s a mixture of emotions. It’s happy. It’s sad. It’s heartbreaking. It’s beautiful,” he said. “They want to share these memories, and therefore, attached to these images, small ads and phrases come … that explain the case around the loss of their home.”

A person, he says, told him how his father fled his house so fast that the only thing he achieved was The shoes they were carrying were removed.

Another wrote about having given birth at the hospital while his house set fire to the foundations.

“Really heartbreaking stories,” Bingham said.

But his most intimate sketch, he says, was the first, who drew for a friend who was going to marry Las Vegas when the fires exploded.

Bingham managed to save women’s cats on the day before the flames wrapped the house.

“I woke up the next morning with the text message. You know, she sent a photo of the devastation and there was nothing left,” Bingham said.

“And I didn’t know what to say … You lost your first house the day you married. There are no words for that. So I thought, I can draw his house.”

The cartoonist forms a team

As the requests accumulated, Bingham quickly realized that if he wanted to do them all, he would need help. That is why he called on social networks.

Now they have people who help in their field and organize the applications as they arrive. He is dividing work with 17 other artists, all of whom offer their time and work as volunteers. A local printing press is printing for free. Another person has donated shipping costs.

“The people who have come out of nowhere to help us. It’s simply extraordinary,” he said.

He has also seen others doing similar things, as an artist who draws portraits of pets who died in the fire, or someone who offered to recreate bedspreads that were destroyed.

“In Los Angeles we do not listen to happy messages all the time. We always listen about politics and crying and how things are broken and, you know, how horrible people are in these neighborhoods, in those neighborhoods,” Bingham said. .

“There are really good humans here and they are taking a step forward, which is very pleasant.”

Heber says that he can close his eyes and imagine a future in which someone moves to his house and hangs one of his ancient watercolors.

“Today we are obsessed with instant gratification. And that, for me, is the opposite. It is delayed, prolonged or continuous, as a sense of warmth every time you pass it,” he said.

“And the fact that one day I can take that to someone’s new house is very special. And I am very grateful to have the opportunity to do it.”