The Posthumous Portrait Challenge

Here’s an interesting recent commission, from a blurry B&W snapshot taken in the 1970s, evidently on an airplane. Butch passed away last year and his wife of many years decided to have her favorite pic of him made into a painting. I could see the potential in the concept; I liked the angles coming in from the upper left, bringing us into the composition. Ellen learned about my work after falling in love with my portrait called Gratitude at the recent NOAPS show in Punta Gorda, Florida. The photo contained very little information so I had to fill in with my imagination. Even with my experience with the human figure and having done many posthumous portraits over the years, I knew I would be in for a process. I had to find a way to enhance and deepen the image, find the essence of the man, without disturbing the thing she loved so much about the original picture. It was a very delicate, challenging task. But together we made her dream come alive. Ellen had come to revere that pic, flaws and all, so it was a real needle to thread. And since it was long distance, we had to go back and forth with process pics via email until I finally got it right. Which I finally did.