At the art show at St. Phillips Plaza I was asked whether I would paint a child from photos. Portrait commissions like that can be problematic. I can only see the photo, not how well it depicts the subject. The client, in this case the grandmother, may see the whole personality, I see only one aspect.
In this case, I was shown several photos, but I would have never guessed that they all showed the same kid. Even the hair color seemed to vary from light brown to deeply brunette.
The added complication was that another artist had already painted from these pictures and the grandma didn't like the result. One raeson seemed to be that she really wanted one particular image to be the model for the painting and the artist had decided to use a very different one. I understand her choice: the kid makes no eye contact in the 'dress-up' scene that the grandmother likes.
After some consideration I took the commission - stating quite clearly that I would use just the photo of the 'dress-up', so that's what I did.
I simplified the scene, tried to slightly turn the kid to get better angles, but otherwise stuck to the photo.
I still see some changes that I'll do tomorrow with better light, but it's basically done.
The final version. Can you find the differences? I've prepared files for greeting cards and prints and the original is framed and ready to go
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