Cedar Lee December 24th, 2008

I recently agreed to do a painting from this tiny reference photo.  This is close to the actual size of the digital photo I was given.  They tried very hard to find me a higher-resolution photo, to no avail.

To get a sense of scale, each person’s head in this photo is about 20 x 40 pixels.  In a high-res photo of a person’s face, one eye would be at least this size.  Here’s one of the faces blown up so you can see what I was working with:

And here’s what one eye looks like in a good reference photo.  Reflections in the eyeball.  Wrinkles and pores and individual hairs.

You can see my dilemma.  Normally I would say “no way” to a project like this, but I really wanted to do this painting.  The people in the photo are the 6 siblings of the Smith family, and their family has been close to my own ever since we all met when I was 14.

I had to do this painting.  So I decided to jump in and do the best I could with that photo.  Here’s the result–it took me many hours.

The Smith Kids

20″ x 20″, Acrylic on Canvas

The painting was commissioned by their father as a gift for the oldest daughter (top left) who is one of my most loyal collectors and already owns several of my paintings.

The oldest son (left) is one of my closest and dearest friends.  We have grown up together and kept in touch sporadically over the years, but we’ve always kept in touch.  In the past year, he is responsible for introducing me to contra dancing!

The second oldest son (bottom left) practically lived with my family for a couple of years when he was in high school.  To this day, he is there at all our important family gatherings.

The younger 3, (bottom right, right, top right) I have not seen in person since they were kids, but I keep up with them online via Facebook and Myspace.

Details of the faces:

I had to set aside my desire to get a perfect likeness of each person.  Instead I worked on getting it close enough so you could tell who’s who, and capturing some essence of each personality.

I’m particularly pleased with the hands:

I’m writing from my parents’ house, surrounded by the raucous laughter of my family, feeling happy.

• New Works: Portraiture
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