Capturing the essence of a mother and her toddler son
After taking reference photographs at a toddler’s play group, I managed to produce four photos that could form the basis of a painting. Working as unobtrusively as possible, I photographed the mothers and their toddlers as they played. Many pictures were not sharp or well composed. Of those that were, four had elements that I wanted to incorporate into my paintings. Beautiful expressions that would make fine subjects for a painting.
First, I attempted the mother. Having observed her in real life, I had a strong idea of the character that I wanted to capture in a painting; her grace, strength and vivacity. This meant that I could not accept a state where something looked off. Yet the painting was looking off for most of its development. Sometimes it was difficult to identify what exactly was off. A little too much shadow under the nose made it look bigger. An excess of highlight on the brow made it too masculine. The challenge was much harder than I anticipated. My perseverance was almost fully depleted by the time I considered her face looked right. After that, the hair was a joy to capture as I could use looser marks.
The son was no less of a challenge particularly as the face was on a smaller scale and my chunky pastels were soft and blunt. I eventually resorted to my set of pastel pencils for finer details, but they were not much help. Again, I wanted to achieve a particular facial expression: unperturbed, a little quizzical and a little pouty, but not petulant or sulky. I also didn’t anticipate how difficult it would be to remove a bright red mark on his nose and a fair amount of chocolate around his mouth from my rendition. A lesson for any future reference photography.
With two pictures complete I am not sure if I have it in me to complete another two. One maybe, but not before a break and a return to landscapes.
BRIDGET'S FINE ART PASTELS 