Changing the facts?

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Hi Mary,

I'm sorry that I found this thread so late. I wasn't on the forum for a while for personal reasons but I'm back now.

How is this portrait coming? I did a search for posts by you and didn't find a finished portrait of your three children so I was just wondering how it was going, and I had an idea for you.

I have a friend who had her four children painted. She had a portrait artist come down from Dallas (we're in Houston) and I wish I knew who is was, I'll have to ask her. Well, she had each child done on a separate canvas. Her kids range in ages from 5 to17 and the 5 year old's full figure was painted. The other three were 3/4 or even less. Each was done on the same size canvas, tall and skinny, about 30" tall by 15" wide. She had them all on her mantle last time I saw them, not even framed, but they were done on heavy stretchers or museum canvas, whatever they call it when the stretchers are thick.

I thought it was an interesting idea because they all worked well together yet each child had his or her own canvas. And of course you could do whatever was most characteristic of each child without worrying about how one child relates to the other (in size anyway).

These portraits I'm talking about were oil and I think you work mostly in pastel. I don't see why it couldn't work for pastel too. I'm sure you've thought about doing 3 separate portraits but I just wanted to share this idea.

Now I'm going back to read some of your other interesting topic starters!

Joan

[Mary Sparrow]

Hi Joan,

No, I never got around to doing this. I tried to get some pictures one afternoon but no one wanted to cooperate. I then got busy with other work. I still plan to do this, they all have at least 3 individual portraits of themselves and I am sure they will have many more !

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Hi Mary,

I look forward to seeing your portrait when it does get done. It sounds like you have your heart set on painting all three children in the same painting. Maybe they could all be staggered on a staircase? I have two children and I would love to paint them both in the same portrait too but it is a challenge. So far I'm painting them one at a time.

That would make a good threat, 'the multiple portrait'. Some basic tips, thoughts about relative size. I find when I take photos of my kids together unless they are almost exactly on the same plane, the closer one's head always looks huge! I'll do a search, there may already be something on this. First, though, for me, I need to learn how to do a good 'single' portrait!

Joan

[Michele Rushworth]

...when I take photos of my kids together, unless they are almost exactly on the same plane, the closer one's head always looks huge!

You'll find that standing well back with your camera and zooming in will help avoid this problem.

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Hi Michele,

Sometimes I don't use my head! That makes perfect sense. Thank you for taking the time to post that information. I must not have a strong enough zoom lens because I always feel like I need to get 8-10' away before I can get a good picture that fills the frame. I will pay more attention to this and try to take some photos from farther away. I am finding out how difficult it is to get good reference photos.

Joan

[Kimberly Dow]

I really like that idea of staggering kids on stairs - I have three children and want to do a family portrait of all of us.