Kieran

Kieran, my 16 year old grandson, lives in Vermont. He and his sister recently came for a summer visit. I painted this portrait before they came and hung the framed painting over his bed.

I had gone back in my photo file looking for a picture of him that would be fun to reproduce. I had always loved this one. We were visiting in November and had gone out looking for a small Christmas tree to cut down and decorate. We set the tree up in the living room between two windows and as the kids began to put decorations on it, the light made behind him just made him glow. I love the softness of this.

I began sketching on 600 grit UArt pastel paper and then did a watercolor underpainting.

I began adding pastel...

I continued to add definition...

And then some highlights.

In the original photo, his hand was partially covered by a tree branch as he was hanging an ornament. I did not want the distraction of the tree...so what to do with his hand? I asked the artist friends in my class what they thought and we talked about a favorite toy.

So then I went back to the photo file and looked at various toys... he was really into Spiderman...I sketched that in...

Oh, no! It looks like he is squeezing Spiderman!
Hmmm, he's all boy...maybe holding a frog...

No way... I knew I didn't want to add a new color...as in 'frog green.'

I liked the color palette that I had already established. Maybe just something of color in his hand that would not call attention to itself. After all, I want to look at his expression, not focus on his hand.

So, now I have a mystery toy (maybe a ball?) and need to finish up. I realized that his face was partially lost into the background so I darkened the area behind him and strengthened the highlights on his face and clothing.

I could probably keep tweaking this for days to come, but knew I needed to get it behind glass and into a frame or I would 'work it to death.' 

Hard to believe that he is now taller than I am and old enough to drive!