New painting

Well I've been busy painting but have not been able to post any updates since the subjects of the painting were not to see it till it was done.

So here we go.

My Sister-In-Law and Brother-In-Law's son (Joseph) is engaged to be married to Gabriella. So they wanted me to do a portrait of them. I agreed and they sent this picture to me.

OK, well I had some issues with the background so I made a couple of changes with Photoshop and then we went back and forth a bit. I was using Sylvia Shap's portraits as a starting point. You can find more of her work here Sylvia Shap Contemporary realist portraiture

I liked the figures floating on a solid background of color but everyone seemed to like them to be sitting on something. Needed to add a bit of discordance to add more action to the painting I found a picture that had a niffty couch in it and decided to use the couch as a base for them to sit on.

So Photoshop to the rescue, lopped off the couch and flipped it so the pillow would be next to Gabriella and changed out the background color.

Felt that there might be some concerns with the Gabriella's hair being up so I found some other pics of Gabriella with her hair down and did a quick edit to see if they wanted hair up or down.

Hair up was chosen so the painting started.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Final 24 inches by 16 inches