20 year old photograph...
 

Here is a photograph that I have been commissioned to do a portrait from. It is a snapshot taken twenty years ago! The boy on the left is now married and the one on the right is getting married this Saturday!

Their mom has commissioned me to do this portrait as a 36" x 48" oil to go in the most prominant place in her large home. Her home has a lot of original artwork and many many formal photography done of her family and children, throughout their lives. I talked her into do a more casual portrait for this large piece as she thought she needed to go with something more formal of them. She dearly loves this photo and has displayed it (small 3 1/2" by 5" snapshot) for 20 years! Since the kids are so much older now, an exact duplicate of this photo is not necessary. Since I will be going from a reference photo where their heads are about 1" in diameter to almost a lifesize painting, or larger, i'll do the best I can with it. I think she will be thrilled with whatever I am able to do with it. She isn't picky!

I plan on changing the clothing to denim overalls, and white shirts and barefeet. What do you think about the composition, lighting, background? I think there is a lot I can do with this and I am excited. I already changed (photoshopped) the child on the right's face (to remove the scowl - she was thrilled!!) and will post a before/after of what I did. I plan on really blurring this (to a degree) any way and going for a soft appearance...since there aren't many details to see, I think this will work best anyway.

Thoughts anyone?

I tweaked it a little in Photoshop. This is a tough reference to work from. I hope this helps.

Helps? sure it does!! Tweak away!! I'll email you the original scanned photo and we'll pool our photoshop talents...you up for it? as long as it still resembles them she'll be thrilled and anything to help the process along on my end will be a blessing...that's why I like to do what I can with difficult references in photoshop first instead of changing EVERYTHING as I paint. I get more and more excited the more I tweak the ref. to make it ideal. I hadn't even begun to mess with color in ps, just his expression and the red spots taken out.

Old photos = tedency towards bleaching out
 

Hi,
I have a fair share of experiences with old photos, and i found that they may tend to "bleach out" and incline towards certain colors - like i believe this photo was taken with Fujifilm, because over here it's a common film brand, and they tend towards greenish-yellow tinge when they start fading.

Even with the scan you may notice even more of this coloring effect, with help from Sandra's photoshop.

My advice is to find a child model to pose for you under a similar shade, and take new photos to add to the references you'll be working with, besides using what has been provided.

I'm sure the new references will be able to provide deeper insights to the light and shade of the children's faces in the shade.

GREAT idea!

Thanks!!

Please checkout my "unveilings" post of this painting
 

I finally, and I do mean finally, completed this painting...it's posted in the "unveilings" section. Let me know what you think!

Thanks!