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Thank you, Mary Ann, Marina, Enzie and Carol! I appreciate your staunch support and very nice comments!
The family lives in London, and we were going to England on a trip to visit our daughter who was studying at Cambridge for a semester. (In fact we met Ilaria at the Tate Britain during this trip.) Originally we were going to arrange things so I would have several days to visit them, sketch the children, and take photos, but we had a scheduling conflict. The day after our arrival in London, they were flying to the U.S.! So I had only about 3 hours to accomplish everything. The circumstances were less than ideal, but I managed to sketch them while they ate lunch, then set things up while they changed into their outfits.
Their mother helped out a lot before I arrived, by sending me photos of their living room from different angles. From the photos I identified the pieces of furniture I wanted to use: the couch, the chair, the folding screen, and the coffee table. The oriental rug worked very well. We moved the furniture around at right angles to the windows, so we could catch the natural light.
I took about 100 photos. If I had been able to come back the next day, I would have taken 100 more! But after a couple of hours the children were out of sorts. The usual variety of dynamics went on between them, plus they were just plain tired of posing. Normally I never attempt to capture children in a single photo session, but I had to.
When I got back home I studied all the photos, I was looking for these things:
1) The best poses and expressions of each child
2) How these poses might work together and provide interaction
3) A composition that would break up the boy/girl stereotypes (i.e. not having the girls watching while the boys played chess)
4) A composition that would not be boys on one side, girls on the other
5) Not all the children looking at the viewer
6) but avoiding too many looking away or down, which might have weakened one side of the composition
7) One or two children "inviting" the viewer into the painting
8) Different activities on different spatial planes that crossed over a bit.
9) Head sizes relatively similar, but still creating depth
Well, I could go on and on. Needless to say, it took some thought. I first made a sketch for the clients, then a photo-montage. When these were approved, I estimated the size and got that approved. The clients were wonderful during the whole process--helpful and not trying to impose their taste. Possibly their taste was similar to begin with (I had done a portrait of the children's grandfather about ten years ago), but I appreciated having their trust.
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