Oil on Canvas
29 cm x 21cm
My dear aunt's 60 birthday came along and I had no idea what to get her, I was thinking about doing a painting for her and some how ambitiously settled into painting portraits of her parents (my grandfather and grandmother.)
The worst thing about this project was how few photos we have of them, the best reference photos I had of my grandpa was one from around 2002 and the best of my grandmother dated back to the early 1980's (she died in 1984)
I did three paintings in total (I'll submit each in a separate posting) - two of grandpa (with 20 years between the reference photos) and one of my grand mother.
This painting in this posting was from a photo taken when he was in his 90's and still stubborn as a mule. It was also the best reference photo of the three.
This series of portraits was the most stressful paintings I have ever done. I was adamant not to fail - the likeness had to be perfect. Andrew, my Co-Op painting buddy often says portrait painters die early because of the stress; I now support that sentiment whole heartedly.
I realised as I was painting how much I missed him.
1 comment:
Stephen - you have captured every detail so beautifully from that pic of Grandpa - the colours, textures, won't say more - you've heard it all already!
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