Children’s mixed media portrait Sunday Night Read-
This in another one of the paintings I wanted to revisit during the process of building out a new website. While I am bored of with the type of painting that I have been creating the last 10-15 years. A few paintings stick out and remind me that I can’t as easily capture moments in time with my more abstract work, at least not yet. Maybe as my skills level increases in abstract I can get to the point of triggering a spacial memory but so far that eludes me.
I painted “Sunday Night Read” for my best friend and sweetheart, Allison. We have been married for 16 years and I wanted a fun and memorable piece for Allison’s anniversary and Christmas gift. The wife of an artist puts up with a tremendous amount stuff from fluctuating income, messy and smelly areas in the studio, and most importantly being last on the list for artwork. Much like the plumbers wife with the leaky sinks and non-working shower, my wife has not really been able to get the art she would like from me.
The idea for this piece came as I admired the nightly reading ritual to our youngest two. With one boy in college and another girl out in the workforce at the time I was acutely aware of how fleeting the cuddly moments with your kids are, they quickly disappear. I wanted to capture that feeling of warmth and happiness that exists on a cold winter afternoon when we just hang out and spend time with one another. Sunday Night Read does the job. The rocking chair that Allison and Elise are sitting in is special to the family and was also the rocking chair in the children’s portrait, “Grandma Rocks!“. Noah’s drawing on the floor or table with a few his Nascar race cars is a daily occurrence.
The original is in our private collection, giclee prints are available from the store.
One of the most fun things I enjoyed most about creating children’s portraiture was developing a sense of a child’s or families day to day lifestyle and painting a scene that tells a story from those activities. As I put together an idea for a child’s portrait with a family we had several different ways of getting to know the subject as well as the family surrounding them.
Many times in the development stage of a painting we would change our original idea from doing a colored pencil portrait, a pastel portrait, or a pencil sketch to doing something more abstract using acrylic or oil. Sometimes we will change our whole perspective and include the family pet or do a separate pet portrait. The point is that the discovery process is what allows an certain intimacy in a portrait to come through.
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