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Thank you, Mary and Thomasin!
Mary, to answer you question about photographic distortion, I tried to correct for it while taking photos by standing as far back from the group as possible. I stood about 15 feet away and crouched down slightly so I was only a little above the taller children's heads (standing). I was trying to minimize the foreshortening of their lower bodies. Still, there was a problem of the children on the couch being quite a bit smaller than the children in front of the couch. I think this was due to the fact that I had to adjust my zoom lens to a wide angle to get everyone into the group shots. The distortion was lessened when I zoomed in to more like 55 mm (old-fashioned equivalent) and focused on one or two in the group. I played with printed copies of the figures, printed at different sizes, eyeballing what I thought looked right. Garth Herrick came over to my studio to see the progress and he thought I could go farther in minimizing the difference in size. (It always helps to have another artist's eye!) I just kept going until it looked right. I then made a photo-pastiche of the children at corrected sizes, and planned my composition and canvas size from that. I hope that explains my process.
Thomasin, glad you appreciate the panel on the screen. When the children's mother sent me pictures of their living room, I was immediately enthusiastic about using the screen as a background, but I didn't want to make the panels all dark (too flat) or completely alternating (too repetitive) Picking out one panel to catch more light seemed like a good solution, also drawing attention to the action in the center of the portrait. Thank you also for mentioning the recent PSA award!
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