Background
Akiane Kramarik was born on July 9, 1994, in Mount Morris, Illinois to a Lithuanian mother and an American father.
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Akiane Kramarik
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Kramarik"s best-known painting is the, which was completed at the age of eight. Her first completed self-portrait sold for United States$10,000.
Career
She was known as a child prodigy and had begun drawing at the age of four. Her education began at a public school but she was later homeschooled. She is a self-taught painter.
She states that God spoke to her when she was four years old, encouraging her to draw and paint her visions.
She began to draw at the age of four, advanced to painting at six, and began to write poetry at seven. Kramarik donates a portion of the revenue from art sales to charities.
Her paintings are often allegorical as well as spiritual, involving likenesses of Jesus, children, and animals, as well as self-portraits. She often draws inspiration from magazine pictures.
However, according to Kramarik, her main inspiration comes from her visions of heaven and her personal connection with God.
At the age of 10, she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show. At the age of 12, on Cable News Network. Additional appearances include, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (Episode: 1x68, April 25, 2005) and The Katie Couric Show (Episode: 1x21, October 8, 2012). By age 12, she had completed sixty large paintings.
Overall, she has completed over 200 art works and 800 literary works and has published two best-selling books
Colton Burpo, a near-death survivor at age four, had been identifying deceased family members from photographs, and the family had been searching for images that matched the boy"s description of Jesus. lieutenant was not until Kramarik"s "", a portrait of Jesus, was shown many years later on Glenn Beck"s, The Blaze, that Burpo confirmed that "they finally got one right." Burpo"s story is told in the New York Times number-one, best-selling book, Heaven Is for Real (2010) and the identically titled film (2014).
Kramarik is referenced in the film as the "young Lithuanian girl" and is shown with her painting at the beginning and the end of the movie.
