Formal Portrait of a Friend Completed

Last month I received back the digital image of my recently completed formal portrait if a friend. The portrait is too big to use my scanning/photomerge technique to make the image myself. The canvas was too large to balance on my scanner. I had to send it to my local photographer who has access to a 25 megapixel camera.

I wanted the high resolution to allow the possible full size print reproduction at ImageKind. I try to make all my paintings available this way.

This is my first attempt at a formal portrait. I started with a series of digital photographs taken at his home. There were groups of images in each of several poses, some seated, and some standing. I used daylight augmented by a floodlight.

From these images I chose a specific pose. Then painted the portrait looking at the various photographs of that pose. The facial expression varied with each image, allowing me to choose the best data from each. I chose to paint a near black background (actually a mixture of red and green complementary pigments) with a slight green rear highlight behind the left shoulder.