Photos: Fresh faces of World War II

Chris Demarest was a children’s book author and illustrator and an artist with the Coast Guard before he set out to travel and paint portraits of World War II veterans. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

July 31, 2014 6:16 PM PT

For the last two years, Demarest has wound across the country from library to museum to retirement home, displaying his intimate portraits of World War II veterans in their prime, and preparing new works from the people he meets along the way.

Demarest paints WAVES sailor Genevieve Sullivan at 26, from an original photograph. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Demarest talks with Palm Springs Air Museum visitors Lenore Crilly of Sierra Madre and grandson Ethan Jordan, 9, of Glendora. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Air Force Capt. Robert Demarest, the artist’s father, portrayed in the pilot’s seat of a C-47 cargo plane in Asia during World War II. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

A Demarest painting of twins Helen and Vera Cathcart Wright at a New Jersey factory building planes for the war. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)