I drew this beautiful family last month before Easter. Sean is a client who contacted me back in January. I created a portrait drawing of him and his wife in 2020. The first drawing was an image from their wedding day. Sean wanted to commission another portrait at the same size of 40 x 40 cm, this time to include their baby son Shay. Shay was born in October last year (2023). The photograph I worked from was taken in a beautiful location in North Cyprus during their family holiday.
Sean commissioned the drawing as an anniversary gift for his wife. He was very organised and contacted me almost four months before his anniversary date to give me pleanty of time to finish the drawing and give him time for framing.
I had one photograph to work from for the portrait, but Sean emailed me a few others for additional reference. In the original photo Sean was wearing sunglasses. I had enough reference to remove these and draw his face without them. He also asked me to add a small halloween decoration to the very bottom right of the portrait.
The drawing was quite complex and took a good few hours to complete. I really wanted to give the main characters and the setting its justice. I worked in more detail for the facial features to bring them into focus. The young family look so happy and I wanted to capture this in the portrait.
Sean was very happy with the finished drawing and I am hoping to hear from him about what Sinead thought of it when he gave it to her on the 18th April this year. He wrote me a lovely email when he saw the scanned image and when he received the drawing in post:
Hello Ivana.
Sean on the finished portrait drawing of his family in North Cyprus, Dublin
Oh I love it. It’s perfect. Thank you so much again for all your time and effort to capture this memory for me. Could not be happier. I’ll be sure to drop you an update on how my wife reacts when our anniversary comes around. Cannot wait to have the drawing here and get it framed ahead of time…I wanted to let you know that the drawing arrived this morning so that is brilliant.
I’ve not had a chance to look at it yet as Sinéad is here but I’m sure it’s perfect. Thank you so much
I used graphite pencil on paper. I worked in stages as usual, starting with a precise line sketch to capture the likeness of the characters. Once I was happy I achieved this, I moved on to shading. I kept stepping away from the drawing to see it in a more distant view to make sure it is working not only in close-up detail but as a whole too.
I used my favourite pencils made by Staedtler, Mars Lumograph Black. For the background I used Faber-Castell graphite matt pencils. I posted the drawing mounted in a neutral coloured mount ready for the client to have it framed.
Email me your own photos to commission a family portrait of your own.