Sunday, October 19, 2014

Old Family Photo Revisited

My friends asked me to do this old photo as a painting.  They were fine with the figures being obscure, abstract, and dark.  However, as I worked, it became clear that it would not look right at all. My father always told me that the human eye sees so much more than a camera lens--and this is a perfect example of that.  This picture does not look great with silhouettes (I have another painting with a sunset where that works).  So after a lot of prayer and many hours of work, I was able to lighten the figures a bit and also draw out a little more of their features.  It provided quite the challenge!  Here is the photo and the painting.