I was commissioned to create this painting by a client in the midlands. The portrait is based on a photograph taken by Seb Daly during the 2015 Sean O’Mahony’s versus St. Patrick’s Louth County Senior Football Championship Final. The player number 10 is Aidan McCann pictured celebrating scoring the only goal for the team. In the original photo there is another player whom my client asked to be removed from the painting. I filled in the rest of the background and spectators instead.
I worked at a smaller size of 30 x 30 cm which was a challenging small size to capture the detail in Aidan’s face and his likeness.
My client was very happy with the result when she received the scanned image by email:
Ohhh Ivana! It is beautiful! Thank you so much!
Orla, about her commission of the sports star Aidan, county Louth, Ireland
I worked with a simple line sketch made up of yellow ochre at first. I worked on fine grain canvas so I can get to capture a good bit of detail in the painting. Once I was happy with the sketch and how I captured the likeness of the player, I started filling in some basic block colours into the painting.
As with most sports portraits, the colour scheme was bright and it was a lot of fun for me using colours I don’t usually use. These would include the bright Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Red (Hue) and my favourite Cerulean Blue. I had to create some really strongly saturated greens and blues for the jersey and the grass.
I took some photographs of the painting in progress and when finished. I have a white shelf on one of my studio walls which I use for documenting finished work. It is great for stepping back and seeing the portraits in a different light. I often turn my work to face the wall for a few days so I can see it with fresh eyes. There are always adjustments to be made, but at the same time I don’t want to overwork my projects.
I create a good few sports portraits every year and I always find them very refreshing projects, especially when capturing movement. Commission or enquire about your own at info@trueimage.ie