I painted a portrait of Terri and Sheri as my last commission of 2024 last December. The painting travelled all the way to North Dakota in the U.S. It was commissioned by Terri, the lady holding the camera in the selfie image. The sisters are twins and so identical, it was so much fun for me painting their likeness on canvas.
The painting was gifted to Sheri as a 60th birthday present from Terri. She claimed she never gives her great presents, but I doubt it very much 🙂 Terri was a lovely client to work with. She emailed me a photo from their travels in Europe, from Siena in Italy. The ladies are very close, live very close by and even work together. Their connection comes through so strongly from the photograph and I wanted to capture this in the painting.
The photo didn’t offer a huge amount of detail and working at a larger scale of 60 x 60 cm meant I had some freedom in using some loose brushstrokes. Capturing the eye colour was important to Terri, so I had to make sure it was correct. It is mostly green with some blue tint. This played against the colour of the sisters’ dresses and the green in the background.
Terri was delighted with the final painting:
Ivana I LOVE IT!!!! I do appreciate your work. I like how realistic it looks and the coloring is done so well too. I am so excited to give this painting to Sheri! She will be so surprised- you got this painting done so fast! I am so thankful that you added a picture of your hand and paintbrush- that is a nice gift!! Thank you for painting Sheri and me. This selfie was taken in Siena, Italy and it was a wonderful experience. I will be gifting this painting to her on our 60th birthday this month. I will send you a selfie of us ?in Charleston, SC where we will be celebrating. You are so talented Ivana and I am very happy that I found you for this project. I hope you will want to work with me again in the future.
Terri upon seeing the scanned image of the finished canvas, December 2024
When Terri presented the painting to Sheri, she took some photographs and emailed me again with some news on how she got on:
Hi Ivana! Just wanted to send you a quick email to let you know that Sheri LOVED the painting!! I will be sending you a picture showcasing the photo shortly. Our initial travel plans to Charleston SC were canceled due to bad weather but we rescheduled the trip for March. We ended up going to Fargo which is a fun city to visit in North Dakota. It has been such a pleasure to work with you and I will be emailing you again with another commission.
Terri reflecting on gifting the painting to her sister Sheri on their 60th birthday celebration, Fargo, North Dakota, U.S., January 2025
I painted the painting in my usual way, starting with a loose painted sketch in yellow ochre. I moved onto colour blocking before adding some detail to the most important areas of the portrait. That being the main features of the face, eyes and mouth and also their lovely curly hair. Because the ladies look so alike, I learned their faces quite well through some careful observation. It is really fun seeing them holding the finished portrait. I can see I captured their likeness on canvas. It was such an enjoyable experience painting twins, my first time! How I love what I do 🙂
