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. http://www.portraits-online.com/art-blog/american-house-portrait-reconstructed An elegant looking dog with very light fur colouring. I think the breed is a Saluki or Persian Greyhound (please correct me if I'm wrong!)
I completed this a couple of years back and forgot to ask the client what breed it was. What the photo here shows is that taking the photo of a dog is often only possible with the help of another person, in this case by picking the dog up to pose for the camera! If in doubt, take lots of digital photos and at least one good one should turn out. I need at least one good photo of your dog to draw or paint a portrait. http://www.portraits-online.com/art-blog/persian-greyhound-portrait-in-watercolour |
Categories
All
ArchiveS
February 2015
|