Unphotographable, But Not Unpaintable
Recently completed as a special holiday present, the portrait of this grand home posed a difficult problem. Situated at the top of a hill and shrouded behind trees, it was simply unphotographable. This made the assignment particularly challenging and fun for me.
I photographed the property in pieces, with very few of the fragments able to be seen from my chosen point of view. The painting is a compilation of all that information put together to make a convincing whole.
I spent a lot of time making sure the perspective and the scale felt right. The camera always enlarges whatever is in the foreground and generally distorts the the relationships. The process was like assembling pieces of a puzzle.
At the beginning of the painting I blocked in the large shape relationships. I continued to build layers of color and texture to arrive at the finished Home Portrait. My goal was to capture the warmth and essence of the property, a reflection of the family life within.
