Portrait of Alice

This portrait  has been a long time coming....

My husband lost his mother when he was 12 years old, leaving him, and an elder brother and sister behind.
she lost her battle with cancer at quite a young age{42 I believe} All a very sad business.

We had a family get together with B's sister this week who is over from Australia, and presented her with the portrait,  in memory of her mother. She was thrilled! It was indeed a very emotional moment, and I for one am so glad she loved it,  as it has been one of those very' difficult 'ones to get right. Had me cursing and swearing a fair bit! But the challenge did me good, and it improves ones skills to have to keep persevering.

Ref pic of Alice

For one thing we didn't have any photographs of her to reference from except this one{above} where she is holding Bill the eldest brother, it is very  faint, and hard to make out her features properly, but it's the best  I had to  had work from, here are the stages of the painting. It is all done in oil.

Drawing

Blocking in  colours



 



Creating shadows



Building up layers of colour and definition



Almost there!



Final stage

It is such a  wonderful feeling being able to capture someones spirit in a painting.

I really love the sepia finish too.

So onto my next project now....:)