Monday, April 11, 2011

Painting Kids from Life ... a few years ago



Elisabeth is now 30 years old. She is my second oldest child, and she posed for a number of paintings. These are a few of her that were more specific "portraits". Again, they were painted from life. The bottom one was painted the same year I painted Rebekah with a doll (see below). Lizzie, though, was the only child to pose for an etching.

To do the etching, I did a small fountain pen drawing of her from life. The drawing then became the basis for the etching, which is small, and I think I went through about 5 or 6 "states", or stages, to get to this image. Generally, I print small editions like this. You can see the plate for this etching a few posts down. It is copper, and I used a "Dutch Mordant" to bite the lines. The printed image, as you can see, comes out in reverse.

2 comments:

Johan said...

Lovely work!
I'm currently in the process of negotiating terms with my son to get him to pose for me o.O

He's a tough nut to crack, even refuses to be photographed.
It will take some effort to get him to pose, but the reward will be so sweet!

Karen Winslow said...

I hope you get to paint your son, Johan! Even though so many of my paintings of my kids are quick studies (not finished or formal), they were all done from life, and I am so glad I got to spend the time with them...talking with them and studying their sweet faces.