Her Garden, portrait combining different reference photos

This portrait was a Christmas gift for a lovely woman, so I waited until after it was given to show it to you… Augusta’s daughter wanted a painting of Augusta in her garden (which I had seen several photos of on Facebook, and it is … glorious). She sent me some photos of Augusta outside, and some different photos of her amazing garden. I wanted to paint Augusta sensitively, but her garden thick and painterly, and to have it all work together. I’m excited about how it came together.

Thanks for looking.

Portrait of a man working. Minnesota and South Dakota portrait paintings.

Hello art enthusiasts, here is the completed painting of our lovely local dry cleaner (detail below). I’ve been breaking one of the cardinal rules of blogging – taking a long break from posting. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

I’ve been refueling the creative juices. Do you do that as well? Since my last posting I’ve taken hundreds of source photos, and am excited about so many different painting ideas. I’m planning to continue with the local landscapes, heavy on landscapes with animals and people in them. If you have any requests, I’d love to hear them.

On a personal note, here’s what I’ve been up to: had lots of summer fun with our 8 year old son (right now he’s programming his minecraft turtle), made a big garden, stained our porch, soul searched and researched about our son’s education next year, house-trained and dealt with lots of medical issues with our new 100% awesome from-the-pound dog. What have you been up to this summer?

Pressed-Shirt-rache-detail