I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED THE COMPLETED PAINTING BEFORE THIS POST, SO I'M GOING AHEAD AND GIVING THE EXPLANATION HERE, JUST OUT OF ORDER!
SORRY ABOUT THAT!
My daughter asked me to paint a portrait of her fiancé. Apparently he has been asking her if she thought I would be willing to paint his portrait, even though he had not asked me! So, as a surprise for him I agreed to at least try.
Then, of course, it became a “must do” as a Christmas gift for him.
I finished it up just prior to the big day and, lo and behold, my daughter, the Princess of Detail (as those of you who follow this blog know) is happy with the finished product! Well, as we say around these parts, if she’s happy we’re all happy!
To see how proficient his investigative skills are, we presented it to him in this way: When they came to dinner I had my geisha painting on the easel. Both my husband and daughter referred to it a couple of times while we were eating. Then, prior to dessert, my husband told him there was something in the garage he needed to see so as soon as they left the room I raced to the easel, snagged my painting off and dashed to the library, tossed that painting (literally!) and grabbed the portrait, set it carefully on the easel, and raced back to the kitchen while my daughter was cutting pie slices in the kitchen, so that when the guys came back to the kitchen the portrait was on the easel, pie on the table and Joe none the wiser.
Then, we waited. I could hardly keep my eyes off of him, but tried not to be too obvious. Finally he glanced into the living room, looked back down at his plate and suddenly his eyes popped open and he whipped his head around, stared at the painting a couple seconds and yelled “AWESOME, that’s AWESOME!”.
So – he likes it!!! Only one problem – he now has two pins on his shirt that he wanted added to the painting, so he came over the next day with his uniform and I took photos of the pins and reference for their placement and have since added them (not seen on this photo).
4 comments:
What a wonderful surprise. Something similar happened to me over a portrait of Tommy (my daughter's toy poodle). Had it painted by a fellow artist who attends my Thurs group (who specialises in animal portraits) and hung it in Laura's hall - and waited!!! Not until she started walking into her bedroom and passed by it, that she eventually did a double take and stepped backwards to take a better look!!
Your work not only AWESOME but HANDSOME with it!!
My painting, Flower Market, is of my mother. I told her that I needed to stop at the framer to pick up a painting. When the shop owner brought the painting out my mom was pleasantly surprised. Definitely a fun way to deliver a painting :-)
Glad he liked the surprise and saw the painting (hard to compete with pie, though, depending on what kind!) ha ha It's a great portrait and I love the collage bits that mean so much to both of them.
What a lovely story to go along with your great portrait painting. Don't you just love it when you get the 'real' un-reheased feeling the recipient has of your work? Great job Deb.
Post a Comment