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Friday, September 21, 2012

Precious ~ WIP 1 (commission)






I know I've been absent for awhile now. No new posts in quite some time but I have been busy. I recently received an unusual request for a family portrait. My client wished to have a painting done of 8 women in her family as little girls, partaking in an outdoor tea party. She had no reference photos of sufficient quality to use so I would have to find my own, guided by her descriptions only. Sound like a fool's undertaking? Not really. I was so touched by the story she shared with me regarding her family that I saw this as a worthwhile challenge.

At first I didn't really know where to begin. After going back and forth with her via email an image started forming in my head and I did a very rough sketch on notepad paper with ballpoint pen and sent it to her. She loved it! Now to find my images. This has been the true challenge. I'm looking primarily for children in the correct poses. Many I found with the perfect pose but wrong age or wrong sex, wrong hair style, etc. Surprisingly it hasn't been too hard to turn a 3 year old into a 6-7 year old with very little adjustment and without losing the original pose. Turning a little boy into a little girl hasn't proved that hard either and the hair style changes are easy. Not all poses are exactly as the original sketch but I think things will work out alright. I'm doing this storyboard style, pinning up each child separately on a board in the proper position as I go along.  This will allow me to move, rearrange and enlarge or reduce the size of each little girl as I put this composition together.

There's a lot of work left to do but I wanted to post an update. I'm posting the original sketch and the storyboard as it looks at present.

2 comments:

WheelerGirl said...

Billie, this will be a beautiful piece of art when you are done--precious!!

I told the rest of the gang that we are naming it PRECIOUS, and if they all like it that way it will stay. But that they are free to come up with something better if they want to. love, Katherine

renate said...

Hello Billie:) This is a difficult commission! What a challenge this must be. I love the sketches you already made. You bring this to an good end, I know that for sure! Wish you lots of luck and hope to see the progress:)