The Mermaid Sisters

In honour of the beautiful chaos that is fatherhood. 
(And the bad arse daughters that my brother is raising.)

When January rolled by, I got it into my head that I needed to flex my imagination. It's one thing to recreate the photo in front of me but quite another to create a scene from scratch. That's a weak spot of mine. I wanted to develop it a little bit more so I spent a couple of weeks painting some underwater cities.

The first one was one huge learning curve...

And the second time around I was a little more confident...

My nieces talked me out of the paintings on first sight and they squabbled over who would get to keep which one so much that they're both hanging in my brothers living room where everyone can enjoy them. They also talked me into painting a portrait each of them. Just to sweeten the deal. So I went ahead and painted their favourite baby photo's too. (Miss O's Portrait here and Miss J's Portrait here).

Baby photos are all well and good but they've grown up so much since then. I wanted to surprise my brother with a more recent picture of them so I hit the family photo albums and later invited them over for a few photos when nobody was looking. I wanted a painting that would tie into the ocean scenes and a friend on Facebook suggested mermaids. It was too good an idea to let pass.

I spent a few weeks with the photos, working on other projects and letting ideas brew in the back of my mind. Mermaids. Not just any mermaids, pre-teen mermaids. Have you even seen a modestly clothed mermaid? So you can see my problem then. What do Grandma mermaids wear anyway? Surely, there comes a time in every mermaids life when sagging clam shells just don't cut it anymore. And the background? I toyed with the idea of painting another underwater cityscape in the background, to tie it in with the other paintings, make a bit of a set out of them but that just didn't sit right with me. 

 It came on me like a bolt of lightning one night when I wasn't paying attention. A shipwreck. The two girls standing back to back looking all smug with themselves and a shipwreck in the background.

So I dove right in with very little forethought. Coz that's how I roll.

The background came together so quickly but then things got a little bit sticky. 

They're aged about 10 and 11 years old so I didn't want to show too much skin. I went through hundreds of images of mermaids and mermaid clothing and mermaid inspired runway shows and photoshoots and finally I thought of belly dancers; they always have elaborate clothes and many of their outfits are a play on layers and sheer silks and laces and long tassels to cover up...

…but that didn't work out too well. Second time around I went for something a little more evening gown-ish, a one piece that started off all formal wear and flowed down into long floaty fins. 

I also did some weeding - that long grassy plant on the side was way out of proportion so it had to go. 

Miss O's face looked okay but I gave Miss J's face a makeover.

So here I am in the finishing stages…

And lastly, the finished piece.

I've added some green tones to the undersides of their arms, noses and jawlines (because there's some white sand on the sea bed reflecting light upwards), shuffled some of the wreckage around and painted a hero pulling his friend to safety. 

It is my hope that this painting will serve two purposes. 

Firstly, it's a tribute to my brothers beautiful chaotic duty of fatherhood. 

Taking a little bundle wrapped in pink blankets and moulding it into a beautiful, strong and self reliant young woman is an enormous responsibility and he's doing a kick arse job of it. 

And secondly, if you're reading this Jess and Liv, I want you to remember that you can paint your nails and curl your hair and still be bad arse - a real woman is both beautiful AND strong. 

Don't let anybody tell you that you're "just" a girl. 

You are capable of anything and everything and (especially if you stick together) you are strong enough and tough enough to overcome all of lifes troubles.

 Be honest. 

Be confident. 

Be kind to yourselves. 

Treat other people with the respect and dignity that you yourself deserve.  

And treasure every damned moment of your precious life.    

Also, in the years to come when and if your Dad ever lets you start dating, try not to send to many guys to their doom…I know, I know, they're merely males (we can't blame them for that) but they do come in handy at times.  

Tahlia's 21st Portrait

What an absolute joy this painting has been. I was recently commissioned with creating a set of three portraits and was handed a photo of one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen. How nerve racking! Just check out that bone structure!

This was extremely nerve-racking, to be confronted with the challenge of painting such beautiful face and such a natural smile when every brush stroke is so calculated really had me digging deep.

I also took it upon myself "photoshop" a rather special necklace into the painting. The year earlier, Tahlia was out with friends celebrating her birthday when a drunk driver killed her grandparents. Those same friends rallied alongside her and the family on Tahlia's 21st and gave her this beautiful locket engraved with her Grandparents initials.

I share such a personal detail with you as a reminder to drive your lethal weapon responsibly; nobody should have to lose their loved ones over something so utterly senseless.

I'm using my standard 45x60cm stretched canvas.

You'll notice the background getting darker and darker throughout this series of photos. I wanted a pale background but it just wouldn't work with the "white" icing. 

I totally admit it…I'm making it up as I go. (#how we roll)

I made a pretty solid start on the cake before moving on to the skin tones.

At this stage I realised that Tahlia was looking much heavier and much older than her actual years. Turned out I was a little generous with her jawline and since I don't fancy being murdered in my sleep one night I decline to share the next photo online for the world to see.

This photo however is the almost finished portrait. I would like the break up the colour of the background with a little bit of blue and I think the cake needs so more highlighting, defining brush strokes to finish it off before I call it.

I feel very honoured to have been capable of capturing such a special, bittersweet moment in this family's history and give it those extra touches to help make it all the more special. 

Love you guys! xx

UPDATE:

After brushing some blue onto the background and making some final adjustments to the eyes, I pronounce myself satisfied.

Joe's Portrait (aka The Thinker)

Long before I got my mitts on it The Thinker was a work of art in its own right. The original photo was taken by the incredibly talented Vincent Valentino - Ottawa based photographer, filmmaker, and all round good guy extraordinaire. I'm not certain that when he captured this quiet Father of The Bride moment he realised that he would be capturing a little piece of Joe's soul with it...the image encapsulates his personality just that well.

So my job was easy, Vincent had done all the hard work for me. If you're in that part of the world, go and look him up...they don't make 'em like that here in Australia.

Another 45x60cm canvas...the perfect size for a study or man-cave.

The monochrome palette is so easy to work with and because I have no need to fuss about matching skin tones and colour variations I'm afforded the opportunity to really focus on textures and tones...

...the effect is rather stunning.

I finished off the piece with just the faintest hint of hazel eyes and, it seemed apt to commemorate the wedding, a faint brush of gold on the wedding band.

Every now and then I paint something so extraordinary that I surprise even myself. It should probably make my head swell with self-pride and marvel at the work of my hands but it's actually a very humbling experience. This was certainly one of those paintings...Joe tells me that he's been honoured by the experience but in truth the honour has been mine.

Miss O's Portrait

You may have heard my warning about bartering with children and coming off the worse for wear. This was the photo handed to me over the fence by my niece on the day she and her sister bought a couple of my paintings and convinced me to throw in some portraits to sweeten the deal.

My brother remembers taking the photo, she later fell asleep in her high chair with hot chippies in her mouth, bless her.

The high chair served my kids as well, not to mention it has little Peter Rabbits on it, so I was really pleased to have the opportunity to capture on canvas a little piece of our family history. They grow up so fast!

I was fortunate enough to be able to nip downstairs and study the highchair in question. That helped enormously when I was painting the tiny Peters.

This kid had the coolest blue eyes; they're the colour of ice crystals on a bright spring morning. And her hair is just amazing, this was my first experience with such blonde hair and there is nothing blonde about it!  It has an almost mirror-like quality to it, it kinda absorbs the colours around it.

She's very pleased with the finished result and as much as I grumble and moan about it (#how we roll) I'm very pleased to have recorded a piece of family history that, however precious, would surely have been forgotten to bigger and more important memories in time.

Joshua's Portrait

I was recently given a set of three commissions to paint for a dear friend, one each of her three (mostly grown) kids. I tackled Joshua's portrait first of all, mostly because the looked so damned cool holding the wall up.

I believe the photo was taken in his mid-late teens…

I picked a 45x60xm canvas...I've been using that size a lot lately, its a good size for medium sized walls in studies and bedrooms.

I've cropped the image and zoomed in to focus on Joshua himself and had a bit of fun with the background.

The jumper!! I normally love to pick over the little details like this, I find it quite relaxing, believe it or not. Had the photo been any clearer, I would have replicated it letter by letter. As it was the only word I could decipher was unit so I set about filling it in with illegible scribbles….

And hiding the names of his siblings in there….

His whole face, from the peak of his cap to the bottom of his chin is slightly longer than a lighter, so I have a whole new appreciation for miniaturists and the portraits they paint for lockets and such. The eye is a bit of a sneaky touch...you can't make it out unless you step closer, which the jumper invites people to do.

I was fortunate enough to access other family photos of him and get a sense of his face - the shape of his chin and the curve of his jaw. I'm pleased with the result, I think I've even managed to capture that little bit that of I-don't-want-my-photo-taken attitude.

And I'll upload that final photo any day now. 

COMING SOON:
The most beautiful bone structure I've worked with to date; a very meaningful portrait of Joshua's sister, Tahlia, on her 21st birthday.

Miss J's Portrait

 You may remember the story…once upon a time, a couple of months ago, my young nieces stuck their heads over the fence (they live next door) and caught me in the middle of painting a portrait of my son. 

Their father is a pro at haggling, I should have been on my guard as they went about talking me out of my two most recent paintings (a pair of underwater cityscapes with dolphins and whales and colourful corals) for the price of the canvas…. with a bonus portrait thrown in for good measure. 

A bonus portrait each, mind you. 

Never barter with kids, you just won't win. 

So this was the photo that Miss J brought me, a photo of her in her Sunday best with her Mama Bear visiting my Grandparents as a wee babe. 

I had a bit of trouble planning the background, there's a plate on the wall that came from England, it's part of our family history and has great sentimental value (I think it belonged to my Great Aunt Jessie) but it was in an awkward place and would have thrown the balance of the painting off kilter. 

Pink was the obvious colour to choose for a baby girl portrait but this baby girl is 11yo, she'll be wanting to dispose of her childhood teddies and paint her room black in a couple of years…I wanted to pick colour that would age well with her.

Fortunately I walked passed one of my older paintings of a pair of fuchsias, the moment I saw the pinkish purples again I knew I had found the perfect background for Miss J's portrait.

As any decent acrylic artist will tell you, you always start at the back of the painting and work your way forwards. In this case, background first, then clothes, then faces and finally hair.

In the past I've painted little Asian babies, Egyptian princesses, and my own kids with their olive complexions but this was one of my first experiences with Caucasian skin tones. Finding the right colours, especially for that baby soft skin, was a huge, no epic(!) trial and error-a-thon.

At this point I began to see that something wasn't quite right with Baby J's eyes. I knew something was wrong…I just couldn't tell you what I had to do to fix it. It took me two weeks (I actually painted another portrait in the meantime) to figure out that her eyes were too close together….

3mm!! They were three measly millimetres too close. 

So I set about fixing her eyes and highlighting/redefining her facial features. These eyes have so much more expression too; they seem to be smiling more than the first pair.

So that's another happy customer and I've learnt my lesson about haggling with children. Especially such precious children...honestly, who could say no to a face like that?

It's All Cousin Cat's Fault

I have some dear family on Facebook who also paint, we bounce a lot of idea's off each other, learn from each other, encourage each other…it's quite a nice relationship(s) and one that I'm very grateful for. A couple of months ago, my (Dad's) cousin Catrina went all Game of Thrones on us and painted this...

You can find her (face painting and more) on Facebook

And I thought to myself…

"I should really have another go at painting portraits. The last one didn't turn out so well, but I should give it another chance."

And talk about a snowball!! I wanted to record a little bit of my own family history, something I could pull out in 20yrs time and be all …

"Awww! Remember that!? I wonder where it is now, we had that [thing] for years!"

So I painted this…

I think it fits the criteria. It's my youngest son, my Baby David, and that elephant goes everywhere with us. He even made me take it shopping on time. He stayed at home…but the elephant came shopping with me. It also gets stuffed into the handle bars when David is tearing around on his bike, wears its own seatbelt and has been smuggled into Pre-Primary a few times. The bed sheets I've also had for several years, I think it'll be a nice scene to look back on years from now. 

Anyways. My nieces, whom live next door to me, stuck their heads over the fence one day and were blown away when they saw it. I don't quite understand how they managed it, but the next thing I know I'd handed over two paintings for $30 and promised them a bonus portrait. Each. 

Never haggle with an 11yr old. 

This was the first one -  Miss O eating hot chippies in her high chair….

And again, it's captured a little piece of our family history - the high chair that she's sitting in is the same one that her sister used and my two younger kids after them. Plus it's got Little Peter Wabbits. We love Beatrix Potter in our house. 

And then I painted this one…

So what happens when you post photos on Facebook and tell all your friends that you're painting pictures of the kids? 

Swamped! I have commissions coming out my ears! 

I have family and friends yelling at me (in CAPS LOCK!) because I'm not doing enough to get my work out there, enter it into comps, badger local art communities, promote myself to the wider public. 

I even have people asking for pet portraits. 

And it's all cousin Cat's fault.

Over the next few days I will be uploading the individual projects that I've been working on recently. I intend this blog to serve as a record of my progress, my paintings and a way to showcase myself to potential customers. It is, however, a secular record. If you really want to get in touch with me, come and find me on Facebook.