This is a pencil drawing composed from two photographs, one of baby Anna and the other of her now deceased grandparents. The drawing is 20 x 30 cm in size, approximately A4, and drawn with graphite pencil on paper.
I was commissioned by Anna’s mum to draw this portrait for her husband, Anna’s dad. His parents are in the photo with Anna and my client wanted to give him something special to remember them by. They never got to meet their baby grandchild.
The client was very happy with the drawing:
Hi Ivana! This is incredible! Thank you so much….I’m looking forward to giving the picture to Patrick, I’m sure he will love it.
Blathnaid, on receiving the scanned image of the drawing, county Kilkenny, Ireland
I began with a line sketch with a HB graphite pencil. After this, I started shading the piece based on the reference photographs I received from the client. I had one photo for the grandparents and one for Anna.
My client wanted the grandparents drawn as if looking down at Anna. I first prepared a digital proof in Photoshop placing the photos together to make sure the client was happy with the composition. For the shading I like to work on the main features for all characters moving around the page to make sure the tones are working together well, especially when working from more than one photograph.
I finished the drawing in a neutral coloured mount before posting it to my client in county Kilkenny before Christmas last.