"Lily" in Dad's hands

Mike McCarty · 06-19-2002, 08:59 PM

Very excited first time parents. I'm afraid I may have to paint this baby. I don't have a lot of experience painting babies.

Mike McCarty · 06-19-2002, 09:02 PM

I have various shots like this. I have one identical to this with a more neutral expression. I just couldn't help showing frown.

Sandy Barnes · 06-20-2002, 07:48 AM

Mike - WOW, what a great shot. I think it would make a very beautiful and sentimental portait.

The frown is precious.

Michael Georges · 06-20-2002, 08:31 AM

Hello Mike:

Great shots both. You mentioned that you had not much experience painting babies. I have done several very young children in charcoal and oil. The thing to realize is that their features are not fully formed yet, so they are fleshy and round and very soft. This means that your tonal transitions need to be very soft too. Otherwise you will get what my wife critically called "old baby syndrome" when looking at my first attempt to paint a baby. The value transitions were too steep between the highlights and shadows and the look was severe and angular - not words to describe a young child.

Little fingers can be a challenge too. They are perfectly anatomical, but they also are fat and pudgy and often they will appear to be wrongly foreshortened - again, it is the value transitions that make the difference.

Kids seem to lose most of this fat by the time they are 3-4 years. I am working on a dual portrait of two kids right now with one girl at around 5 and the other is 2-3. The difference in their anatomy is dramatic. The five year old looks like a little adult, while the younger child still has fat cheeks and fingers.

Hope this helps!

Tom Martinez · 06-20-2002, 09:12 AM

Mike, I'm not trying to talk you out of doing a painting. But, why paint it? The picture itself is precious. I'd take it to a photo shop and have it blown up and framed.

Mike McCarty · 06-20-2002, 09:28 AM

Michael, I think you make some really good points. Thanks for the input. Those chubby little features. I'm including one more chubby pic just for fun.

Tom, I don't disagree at all. What I have is two very excited new parents that want to capture everything. It was a little comical, we couldn't get the baby to wake up. They kept poking and proding her and nothing worked. I think I will try and counsel them to wait a couple of years. I may give one of these a go for experience sake.

Mari DeRuntz · 06-20-2002, 09:28 AM

We call it the "psycho baby" syndrome. But to the parents, it will only be another miracle. Keep us posted on your progress.

Cynthia Daniel · 06-20-2002, 04:03 PM

Mike,

If you're just looking for practice, that's fine. However, if you're trying to build a portfolio, not many portraits are sold of babies. A child 3+ is a better age to add to a portfolio if you have a choice.

Chris Saper · 06-20-2002, 04:50 PM

Hi Mike,

To follow up on Cynthia's statement, I have had a number of requests for baby paintings, but I have not done them as individual portraits. I routinely recommend that they wait until the child is at least 16 months (approximately, as it depends on the individual child), UNLESS they want a painting of an adult or older sibling holding the baby. It is simply too hard to get good reference material, and as cute as all those little noses are, it seems you're always looking up them, and looking past many cute little chins on the way.

Best wishes!

Stanka Kordic · 06-20-2002, 05:01 PM

Hi Mike,

ALL your photographs are ALWAYS so beautiful. Just wanted to tell you that.

Oh, I would also pipe in to suggest waiting until the child begins to look like herself (around 3ish).