Portrait Commission Step by Step

My girls take piano lessons from the famous, lovely, and talented artist Angela Henrie. Some of you may know her name from her line of jewelry or her blog. She has 8 kiddos just like me. She even has 2 boys and 6 girls just like me (and my Aunt Joanna). I just love her, and my kids do too. I also dig her hot pink kitchen! Who wouldn't want to cook in there!

Here is Art Girl at her recital. Did I mention that Miss Angela is very Classy? Yes she is. I think it is from going to the same High School as me, Mountain View.

Here's Mini Me playing Brahms Lullaby.

Well, I begged Miss Angela if I could paint a portrait of one of her kiddos and she said "yes". So here is how I go about making a portrait for someone.

Step one: Arrange a meeting with the client and discuss what you want and the clothing. Angela really liked my paintings of angels and wanted one for her little Winnie. For her clothing, I draped and pinned some silk fabric on her and set her in the light the way we wanted. They both wanted a dark blue background and so we set up a black poster board behind her to set the values.

Step two: Talk with the model to loosen her up. As you can see Winnie was a little shy at first but we took care of that with a few jokes. Then, I just shot with the camera to get the model used to idea. The best shots will never be the first ones...ever. So relax and shoot away.

Step three: Have your model grow some angel wings right before your eyes. This might take a few minutes so be patient. Just kidding, we used some costume wings and propped them up to approximate what the lighting will be on the painted ones. Also, note how Winnie is starting to warm up and smile.

Step four: Choose which pose you like the best. Sometimes this can be agonizing and sometimes it is very easy. Winnie is so cute that it was hard to choose, so Angela had me email her a few shots and they had a family vote. They chose this one. The family just loves the way she smiles. Me too.

Step five: I did a mock up of what the wings will look like and the colors I would use for Angela's approval. I juiced up Winnie's skin a little with some color in her cheeks and made her eyes just a teeny bit bluer. I put in the blue background and of course, painted in some wings.

"Winnie" Angela's Angel. 2011

And here is the finished painting. See how easy it is? For you guys, not for me. I love painting angels. I think there will be more angels in my future. I'll keep you posted.

Weeds...Part Duex

Mini Me wanted to go out into the weeds and shoot. But, I was too grossed out by the ickyness of these foxtails. Johnson and bermuda is one thing, but FOXTAILS! No way.
So Mini Me took Art Girl into the lot next door and pretended they were in a field of wheat. What were they thinking! There most definitely were scorpions and maybe even a snake!
Mini Me did an okay job shooting Art Girl but look at what Art Girl did.
Remember, Art Girl is only nine.
Drama, cool lighting, perfect fun angles, what talent.
She even followed the number one rule in photographing people, make 'em laugh.
Love it! So, look around you and see if there are any dangerous weedy lots you can shoot in. You might just come up with something like these.

Look out for the train

We just missed the train coming down the track behind us.

Cute pose that was totally unposed.

She was a pill to shoot. Right when we got on the tracks a deer showed up and all she wanted to do was chase the deer into the woods. Like she could catch a deer!

Some random house in the town with a beautiful garden. I thought this yard was so cute and we just jumped out and hurried and shot these pics. I call it Kamakazi shooting. If you don't get thrown out of your location you are just not trying hard enough.

My family looks so big and I am missing 4 people! Love the country!

Perfect landscape

It isn't hard to take a good photograph when you have a great place to shoot. I don't want to make you all jealous, but the midwest is full of inspiring locations and beautiful light. Okay, I'm jealous too, because I don't live in the midwest. But I went there. And I took these.

This is a hill in Iowa. Is that the cutest thing ever? Art Girl thought she couldn't be photographed in a field without a piece of grass in her mouth.

Married kids found a cute little barn and some golden sunset light. Aren't they sweet?

This is a little creek on the farm. It doesn't look like it but it is about 7 feet deep. All this cool atmosphere makes monkeys pose all artsy. I think they should be Ralph Lauren models or something, don't you think? I actually took some pictures even better than these but I deleted them on accident. Of course, they were the best ones I took the whole trip. Isn't that the rule?

Even fallen leaves make a great backdrop. My kids went crazy in the leaves after this shot. We don't have deciduous trees where we live. The heartland is where it's at, baby.

Tall patch of bushy grass

When we moved into our new house we were too cash strapped to put in landscaping and the weeds are gross and out of control and I have spent about $100 dollars on Roundup and I still have monstrous weeds everywhere. Well, if you can't beat 'em... join 'em! Hello weedy backyard. I am sorry I ever grumbled against you.
Yes, this is really my backyard. The shorter stuff in front is Bermuda grass and the taller stuff in the back is Johnson grass. Sometimes I feel like a hillbilly, white trash, weed growin' barefoot mother of eight. Okay, I feel that way all of the time, but now I'm proud of it!
I love Johnson grass. That chair was dang hard to get outside our back door. I think I will plant Johnson grass in our next house's back yard. It sure would be convenient for photoshoots. Oooh... I could plant wheat. That would be cool and be green in the winter.
We shot these on Labor Day instead of going cliff diving like Married Girl, Married Boy, and Rex. They didn't wear sunscreen and got sunburned but we got these beautiful pics. Haha, we won. I would have posted these sooner but our power grid went out that night and blew my computer for a week and my man fixed it all by himself. Like a pro computer guy. My hero.
This one is my favorite. It was almost sundown and the baby was not cooperating and I am lucky I got any of them in focus. I think I will make this one my business card. This just goes to show you that you have to be grateful for what you have. If life gives you weeds, make pictures.

I love Photoshop

I love Photoshop. It makes bad photographers good. Every pro photographer alive uses photoshop before they show you any proofs. If they say they don't they are lying or they are not telling you the truth. Here is an example of a photo I took 2 years ago and it is the naked truth- straight out of the camera. Or SOOC. I didn't need the background to be good as I was shooting this for a painting anyway, which turned out great. She was sitting on my daughter's dresser which had a bunch of junk on it and a crooked poster of Cinderella on the wall. I got rid of that with a PS paintbrush.
Next, I jacked up the color and blurred out the edges with the layers function. That is always real fun. Jacking up color and blurring edges. I try to do that when I cook, too.
Cropping is the single most important thing to do in a photo. If you have a bad composition or someone's hand is in the way, cropping will make it all better. If you have a headache, cropping will take care of that, too. I know, I had a headache this morning and I thought, "Advil or cropping?" I chose cropping.
Here is a different crop. It is square. See how beautiful Photoshop is? I love to make things black and white. It hides a myriad of photography flaws. If you see a photographer who doesn't ever do color, that is a big sign that he stinks. Just kidding, or not, just kidding. Now go back to the first photograph and see how stinky I was until I did some Photoshop.