This painting was commissioned back in May and was an anniversary present for the client’s girlfriend pictured in the painting. She is feeding a giraffe. I must admit I was not aware this was possible at all! It was a very unusual and exciting project for me. The colour scheme being completely different to that of an Irish landscape which I would be most familiar with. The photo was taken during a trip the couple took to Kenya last year. The painting is 40 x 30 cm in size painted with acrylics on stretched canvas.
The client wanted to capture a special moment on their trip and had three photographs to choose from. It was a very difficult decision as each one was just so unique and I wanted to paint them all. But we settled on this one, which I think shows both of them sharing an unforgettable moment.
I started the painting by sketching in a mix of yellow ochre with a touch of venetian red. I wanted the entire painting to have a warm tint so I used these two colours throughout all my mixes. This achieved an overall balance and warmth.
After I completed the first sketch, I moved onto putting down some basic colour mixes. From then I started overlaying colours in thin washes until I was happy with the result.
I scanned the finished painting in-house on my HP scanner. I did this in four pieces which I pieced together digitally in Photoshop. I took some photographs of the painting on a shelf in my studio too so you can see it as an object too.
Above is the photograph I used for the painting. The client was very pleased with the finished painting:
Hi Ivana! I love it, thank you so much! It looks even better than I ever could have imagined!…I’m sure my girlfriend is going to love it and even better it will be a complete surprise for her 🙂
Donagh, Dublin, Ireland
