American house portrait reconstructed from old photos

Custom house portrait drawing of an American house drawn from old damaged photos

Old damaged photo of an American house

Old damaged photo of an American house lightened to see more detail

A recent house portrait drawing I completed for a client in the US involved recreating how an old property originally looked when it was at its best. I had to work from one very old and damaged photo, and modern photos of how the house looks today.


If you would like to see more examples of my house portrait drawings and paintings visit my portfolio page. The brief also required that the sketch had to have the look of an old print or painting. I decided use watercolour paper that had had a sepia colour wash. This gave it an aged appearance to start with and then I drew out the main house details with pencil. Finally I used a very simple watercolour pallette of grays and sepia to finish the house portrait.

It was a bit of a challenge because parts of the house were obscured on the photos and much of the original house detail was difficult to see from the old dark photo. What I can often do when the detail in a photo is not fully clear is digitally adjust the light levels in the photo. This can often pull out hidden detail that is not obvious with the original photo. Have a look at the photo below and compare it with the one above. The windows on the shady terrace for example are much clearer after I digitally lighten the photo.



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