Vintage Photo Reproduction

Sometimes when I sit down to paint, it's like the visage was already in my brush, and I barely had to do any sort of work at all to make the resemblance come out. That was not the case here. I had to struggle with it a bit. At first I made the hair a little too robust, it looked a little David Lynch. Then the mouth too wide, the jaw too narrow, and on and on. So I remodeled and repainted and measured and matched and turned the thing upside down, used a viewfinder, and I feel like I have a really good handle on it now. Sometimes I find it hard to reconcile the fuzziness of the vintage photo with the decisiveness of making brushstrokes with paint.


I think by the end, I have a very nice portrait, and I was able to remodel and capture some of the youthfulness in the very serious face. I hope the client will be pleased. It was a fun challenge, and I'd like to do more of these.