A New Pastel Commission - A Southern Gentleman

Here is my most recent commission.

Commission

11" x 14" Pastel on Velour

It was one of my more challenging pieces, no eyes that you can see and I always start with the eyes.  This time however I started with the sky. Then there are the wrinkles and stripes. There is a lot of character in his face because of his wrinkles - I wanted to make sure I captured that character but not over do it.  Then there is the shirt - my gosh - all kinds of stripes going every which way with all the folds and all.  I almost went cross-eyed!

My client is giving this to his wife for Christmas.  It is of her father.  He was actually cleaning fish in the photo reference I was using but we decided it really wasn't necessary to know what he was doing so I cropped it. There was also a busy background and I edited it to just the sky so your attention is just on him. Now you can use your imagination to wonder what he is doing - praying, reading a book or newspaper, or contemplating a nap, or even cleaning a fish and I like that.

Someone from New York who saw it mentioned to me that he looks like what she imagined a "Southern gentleman"  would look like.  I liked that too.

Here is the progression of my work on this piece. Thought you might like to see it.

I really enjoyed working on this piece - much more than I thought I would.  It took longer than normal for me but I like the way it turned out - I hope my client and his wife does too!

Psalm 143:1 (KJV)
143 Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness.