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.

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.  

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?