Jordan's Portrait

Jordan's portrait is the third and final portrait in a set of three. We had a little trouble finding the perfect picture for Jordan. He's a performer at heart - he was made for theatre. He has a wicked sense of humour, he loves his high school drama class, he's written a few songs, he loves to get up and groove, he loves showing off for the camera. He has a sense of fun that has driven his poor parents daft. 

So when it came time to pick a photo for him and Mum went through the family photo albums we found one funny face after another. I suspect he's actually incapable of pulling a casual, easy going smile when there's a camera around…on the other hand he has a repertoire of goofy faces that puts Mr Bean to shame. 

In the end we settled on a portrait that would highlight his character - something fun and a little bit quirky. 

Another 45 x 60cm canvas. 

He's in his mid teens now and when I was his age I wanted to paint my room black so I've given him a dark Paynes Grey background.

I've used a spray bottle and misted over the paint on his shirt to give it a little texture. You know that fabric…it's grey but it has lighter and darker threads throughout. By misting over it and brushing that loose wet paint off I've been able to give it a quite realistic look. 

I thought the logo would give me more trouble but it came together quite easily.

The kids in this family have the most remarkable bluish green eyes, made even bluer by the dull blue background.

I'm in the middle of touching up the eyes and deepening the shadows on the side of his face at the moment. I think I want to add a little bit more curve (and attitude) to that eyebrow too. 

Mum will be able to decide which way to turn the canvas, it works in both portrait view and landscape view. In the end she'll have three totally unique portraits of her kids, each representing their totally different characters - the first was Josh, with his very cool, I-don't-like-my-photo-taken portrait, the beautiful Tahlia, in the prime of her life over her 21 birthday cake and fun loving Jordan with one of his cheeky grins. 

Stay tuned, and I'll upload the finished piece just as soon as I've finished.

Leona's Mermaid

Leona came to me with a picture of a mermaid, possibly a pen and ink (or watercolour) painting and wanted me to re-create it with a few changes. 

Firstly, she was keen to see the whole mermaid, in the original the tail is lopped off and only partially formed. She liked the blonde hair and the full figure (and specifically requested a nipple) and she picked a few colours that she wanted to see in the painting - she's fond of the blue side of the colour wheel.

She also gave me licence to add a few embellishments and "make it my own".

I've realigned the image so that it's front and centre on the 45x60cm canvas.

The colours Leona pointed out when we were discussing this piece reminded me of a peacock. I wanted to try and keep the original style of the image (there was a reason she fell in love with it) but I've used a peacock inspired palette to pull it off. 

Things started getting a bit tricky around this point. The hand and face is very stylised, it's almost cartoonish, and I wanted to keep that style but embellish it, really flesh her out and add a touch of realism to her features.

Hands are incredibly difficult to capture. The original has that stylised, cartoonish hand with fingers splayed out at awkward angles so I've given her hand a more regal shape. I also painted it a bit larger than the original though it's still quite small in proportion to the body.

I've possibly overdone it with the curling tongs! But the face is were I'm truly struggling, I'm not satisfied with it. (Keep in mind that I'm yet to paint the eyebrows, they'll finish off her facial expression.)

It's lost some of the original expression and I need to draw that out again. I've changed the shape of her eyes (made them rounder, more realistic) and I've changed the direction that she's looking in so that's she's peering out to the viewer rather than off over her shoulder. So I'm going back to the drawing board to rethink those changes. 

And in the meantime I'll be glossing over some sections of tail to draw out the deep blues and highlight her hip.

 Stay tuned!