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.