Tuscany is one of those places that cannot be confused with any other. It is so picturesque, sometimes too much so and so easy to get sucked in when painting it. I thoroughly enjoyed this painting process though, from the distant hills to the foreground with the young family.
I was commissioned to create this painting for the couple in the portrait. They are getting married this autumn and their friend, my client, wanted to give them something a little different and personal as their wedding gift. Here, they are sitting with their son looking out at one of the most beautiful places on Earth (in my view at least 🙂
I had one photograph to work from. The painting is quite small and intimate at 20 x 30 cm. I worked with acrylics on fine grain stretched canvas which gave me the smoothness I needed to capture all the detail in the landscape. I worked in small brushes to detail all I wanted to, but not too small so the portrait still retains its hand made quality.
I wanted to capture all the shades of green in the foreground and background alike, keeping the cooler lemon yellow hues to the further background to push the perspective and depth.
I feel I achieved what I aspired to do and the client was really pleased with the final portrait when he received the scanned image by email:
Hi Ivana! That looks beautiful thank you. I look forward to seeing it for real… Thank you for your beautiful work.
Simon upon receiving a scanned image of the finished painting of his friend and family, Roundwood, county Wicklow, Ireland
I took some photographs of the painting in progress and of the finished canvas. I like to include my hand in the work in progress photos to show the scale at which I am working at.
