The wedding photo

There are going to be  2 blogs this week. This one is  about completing a commissioned drawing for Janette -famous as  She who Loans Rotary Cutter.  This is the nice one. (The next is about this week's sewing adventure - provisionally titled 'when sewing turned nasty').




Janette asked me to do a pencil drawing of her parents on their wedding day, something a little more personal than a photograph.  She had seen some of the Regency fashion plate drawings I do and asked for something along those lines. (See website-https://sites.google.com/site/franbrammer/galleries/costume-illustration )

 Several photos were emailed; lovely classic church door poses showing off the smiles, bouquet and beautiful dress;  but early trials were not the best - they are squinting into the sun and nearly all detail on the face and dress is lost.

Working from photos of photos can be risky - these were all slightly slanted so the proportions of the figures changed in each - don't believe what a difference this can make? - Try it. Place a photo flat on a table and photograph it from extreme angles - in some you will have a chin to rival Jimmy Hill's and a little pointy head - in others you look more like Benny Hill crossed with a mad science experiment. Fun in the right place but irritating when trying to gauge someone's height and the shape of their face.

J had a less formal photo that we decided would give the best results - especially as I could work first hand from it. We agreed priorities, expectations, size, and no excuses later, work began.

Initial sketch and  beginning to block in the tone. With such strong sunlight very few details such as eye shape are evident,  so the capturing of the individual was down to overall shape and the positioning and depth of the patches of shadow. On Mr J the shadows are too harsh, the smile is too square- making it look forced, and the neck too straight. Mrs J's face is  slanted. leaning forward which is distorting the head shape.





Corrections to Mrs J - thinning and reshaping the far cheek bone, more depth to the hair to the left. Mr J now looks uncertain about the smile so more to tweak there, but the softer shading works well.










More adjustments made - Mr J's neck as a curve running up behind the ear and into the skull shape, he looks more poised and relaxed, The extra shading in the hair is defining him more clearly as well. Decisions still  have to be made about  the background and  how to finish the figures. Janette was clear about wanting the focus to be on the faces and bouquet so I proposed just letting the drawing fade away from these areas. I liked the way her hand tucks over his forearm so included this but without a huge amount of detail.






This was the sketching phase done, all of the bones of the drawing are in place, it was time to flesh them out in more detail and depth. Pencils were sharpened and battle commenced. The changes are probably most evident on his hair and the bouquet, the shapes are crisper, the surfaces have a character, everything is in sharper focus.

And the finished piece - added in the veil and some of the dress pleats very lightly as suggestions to balance the composition. The faces and clothing have been cleaned and tidied up with out letting it get too polished. I always start scruffy and quick as I think my way into a piece and gradually tighten it up as it develops. At times this requires an act of faith but it usually works out. In this the key areas are controlled and sharp but the pencil marks retain their sketchiness in the outer reaches, a bit like a soft focus effect.
  The additional  colour is watercolour washes in the gentlest shell/rosy pink. On the morning this needed to be done a pink rose opened in the garden, so armed with secateurs I waded into the jungle undergrowth to nick a petal to colour match.( If you don't know my garden then this was an act of extreme bravery - I like very growy things that just get on with it by themselves and still try to believe that if you can't see the soil then there will be nowhere for the weeds to grow)

And the client?  Janette picked this up during the week and seems very pleased with it. She had seen it in a couple of stages so it wasn't too much of a surprise. She was still speaking to me on Saturday and planning on getting this framed so I guess she was happy!

Happiness is a contented client and an outcome that even this artist is pretty pleased with. Add onto that the sun is shining and I've just remembered that there is one Magnum left in the freezer ( not for long) and it makes up into a proper Sunday.