These are a couple of small portraits that I painted last year. A grandmother commissioned these as birthday gifts for her grandchildren. I hope they liked them!
I like to use a lot of references when I paint – preferably from life, but of course that isn’t possible all the time. If a real-life reference isn’t available, I do a lot of image research and try to find a good number of sources. Most of the time I take photos with my digital camera as references or ask my friends to pose for me. Even if I want to paint a tree, I will look around at different types of trees and make sketches/notes about what they look like. I put a lot of thought into my paintings and make sketches before touching the canvas because once you start painting, it’s kind of hard to go back and correct a mistake.
This time I was only given one photo of each of the kids, so I had to work with what I had. I think they turned out pretty well π
