This is one of those portraits with an unforgettable setting. I painted this portrait back in January this year.
It portrays Jerry, the client’s husband, who was turning 50 in January this year. It was commissioned as a birthday gift for him to remember a very special family trip to Norway. He is pictured here with his son Matthew and their gorgeous black labrador dog Lenny. Jerry just adores Lenny according to my client.
They are all on a boat fishing in a lake in Norway. Not only is it an amazing background, the photograph is just great. The lighting and the colours just sang to me and I was very happy to spend some hours getting lost in painting this scene.
The client, Blathnaid, was very happy with the resulting painting, with the scan and then when she collected it with Matthew one evening:
WOW! Ivana, it is incredible! Amazing how you have captured Jerry, Matthew and Lenny so lifelike, the essence of each of them and the scenery is just beautiful. It brings me right back to the moment. I cannot wait to see it tomorrow! Thank you so much, I am so excited to give it to Jerry now as I know he will just be over the moon. ( I finally might have gotten a present right!) Thank you so much again, you are so talented…
Blathnaid, Ardclough, county Kildare, Ireland
The painting is 40 x 40 cm in size. I worked in acrylic on fine grain stretched canvas. It took a good few hours to paint this. I wanted to include all the detail necessary to create a richly coloured and detailed artwork. I kept less detail in the background to create more depth in the painting. The detail was kept for the characters, their features and clothes. The shadows in the photo were quite strong and I wanted to keep this in the painting.
I had one photograph to work from as a reference. I omitted one or two unnecessary details from the photo, but kept the rest in the picture.
I began by creating a very detailed line sketch with yellow ochre making sure to capture the likeness’ of both father and son and their pet labrador. I then moved onto colour blocking the background. When working on skin tones, I prefer to fill in most of the background colours first to give me a good comparison for when I am creating natural skin. It always amazes me how coloure affect each other when placed in close proximity to each other. I used a limited palette of my favourite colours of Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue, Venetian Red and Titanium White. For adding coolness to my mixes, I used Cerulean Blue, Cadmium Lemon and Alizarin Crimson. For lightness and translucency in the background mountain mixes, I used some Burnt Umber in addidtion to Venetian Red.
I took some photographs of the painting in progress and when finished.
Commission your own portrait by contacting me with your queries and photographs on info@trueimage.ie or visit my main page for more information on the painting process.