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Contact me by email: mbrummermann@comcast.net or telephone 520-682-2837

'In any land what is there more glorious than sunlight! Even here in the desert where it falls fierce and hot like a rain of meteors, it is the one supreme beauty to which all things pay allegiance ... The chief glory of the desert is its broad blaze of omnipresent light.'
-John Van Dyke

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Playing dress-up with her sister's prom dress


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

Thursday, October 17, 2013