Turner
 

Well, my "James and Lily" portrait is being put on hold for a month until I can get to them and take new pictures. So I want to use this time to paint my middle child, Turner. I painted his older brother at age 3, and would like to do them all at that time. The problem is, I got busy and he is now 3.5. Well, it seems in the last six months he has changed ALOT. His features are more boyish that babyish it just makes me sad. Anyway, I have a picture that I just adore of him at 2.5. Coming from the mom in me, this is the little boy I want in the portrait. This picture was just a snapshot, not taken with a portrait in mind so I would like your opinions on it.

I want it similar in size to his brother's, which is 30x40. The one thing that I don't like however is the beach. I wanted a plain dark background, Im just not sure I like the idea of the ocean in the background for a very formal dining room, but then how would I explain the obvious wind blowing? I suppose I could tame the hair and shirt down some, but don't know if that is a good idea. Any thoughts?

I could just kick myself for not making the time to get exactly what I wanted before his little growth spurt...but I was busy giving birth to his sister around that time.;)

Here is an image
 

of Marc's portrait. This just happened to be an image I had on file of Marc's while it was in progress, so it isn't the best image of the portrait but it gives you an idea of the look I was wanting for Turner's. I can't decide whether to stick with my original idea or just change it all together?

I like your little tike's pose very much, hands, arms, legs, body position. I also like the ocean, which gives a good horizontal balancing component to the composition. And I love the foot prints in the sand, which I would be tempted to play up.

How long can you count on this portrait hanging in your formal dining room? No doubt these portraits will someday be seperated. I say hang the surroundings.

The downside of course will be getting the info you need from the face and feet. Maybe these issues can be supplemented from other means.

Mike
 

About the feet, do I paint the picture as is? Or get him to stand in that position and take pics of his feet to ad in? Or paint the feet "in" the sand?

As for the face, I have plenty of photos from that day of him. Plus the actual photo is much clearer than what got scanned in, so I'm not too worried about that part.

I don't think I would paint it exactly as the photo suggests. Best case would be to add several inches below the feet for a canvas that big.

If you can't get the feet reference you need you could crop it up to somewhere just below the pants. But my preference would be with feet comfotably up from the bottom of the frame.

You may be lucky in that one foot looks to be mostly obscured.