After painting lots of pets I had the wonderful opportunity to paint a lovely baby girl....my client's 20 month old granddaughter.
In this digital age, I've never met the sweet baby, but had her photo e-mailed to me as a jpeg attachment in a high resolution to my in-box.
I was taken at how beautiful she was...and how fair! The dark desk behind her really brought out how light her skin was, and brought your attention to her face.
First I cropped the photo in photoshop.
I was concerned about the hand under her lace, but later thought it was a sweet baby gesture and left it in.
I wanted to see the values better, so I put it in photoshop elements and broke the photo into 5 values.
I now thought the dark background was too harsh and decided to keep the painting high key...as this child is so light-filled. I would keep everything soft and chose a light beige sanded paper (U-Art) that would go with her light warm complexion.
Here is the result!
I really am happy with the way this came out. The photo didn't capture the colors exactly, but close enough to give you an idea of what I was going for .
Baby portraits are very sensitive...they have such soft, smooth skin...no wrinkles! And a glow that I think pastel captures wonderfully!
Hope you enjoyed my process. Thank you for following my blog.
For information about a portrait or classes, please see my website here.
Kim Werfel
