Posthumous Portrait of a Husband
 

Just shipped this off to the client, who lives in Florida. It's in oil, 20 x 24". The lower part of the reference photo was dark so I had to use my husband, suitably dressed, for the legs and shoe. The client also sent me additional photos of the furniture so I could see what happened to the lower sections where they disappeared into the murk.

Hi Leslie,
His wife must love this. Looks like you did a nice job with very difficult reference! (was there both a flash and the lamp on in the image?) I'm just looking at your comments on this piece, at 24x20 his head must be what about 3 or 4", don't know how you work so small!

Leslie can you post some closer images of his face?

Was the interior something that you picked up from their pictures or one you came up with?

Don't you hate what a pain in the neck these are, but just love the joy it brings to those who know him?

:thumbsup:

Thanks, Terri and Beth! Terri, I shipped it Monday and his wife will receive it today, so I haven't heard. She has seen the image I put up on my website preview page ( at http://leslieficcaglia.org/klaffky.htm ) which is better than the one I could upload here, and really liked it. My parents live near her and knew them both well; they thought it was excellent, too.

Yes, it definitely looked as though light were coming both from the lamp and from a flash, which did make it hard to render. But that was the nicest picture she had of him. The background is very much like the one in the photo although I moved some of the furniture slightly.

Beth, I tried replacing the other detail shot with a better one, but because the head is so small, relatively speaking, I didn't have a lot of material to work from and it's fuzzy. I tried sharpening the image but it's not quite reflective of the real thing. And of course I don't have the original anymore.

I actually think I've done smaller faces but it does make it challenging. She had initially asked for a 16x20 but then decided that she wanted it to fit into a very nice frame which she already owned, so we got to upsize it.

Personally I prefer less formal portraits, but I really enjoyed painting his expression. He looks like such a nice person.