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paintings from december
March 30, 2009
portrait of ben hall
by sven at 7:00 am
A while back I did a birthday portrait of my friend Michael Hall. Alison, his wife, liked it so much, I did a portrait for her, too. Their son Ben turned 5 on Jan 24… So, rounding out the family, I did a portrait for him.
As with the other paintings, I started with a photo.
To get the 3-tone design, I spent a fair while in PhotoShop using Gaussian Blur and Posterize. I wound up cobbling together a bunch of different versions in order to get the clearest image.
I didn't imagine when I first painted mph's portrait that I'd be doing a whole series… It was very helpful to be able to borrow back Michael and Alison's portraits, so I could make sure Ben's fit nicely into the set.
Best wishes, Ben, Alison, Michael!
posted by sven | March 30, 2009 7:00 AM | comments (5) | categories: painting
Comments
neat!
Posted by: gl. at March 30, 2009 11:00 AM
So cool! I love these portraits, Sven. So gonna copy your technique.
Posted by: Shelley Noble at March 30, 2009 5:20 PM
Sven, these portraits are absolutely wonderful. They make me happy every time I look up at them. They looked even better once we got Ben to agree to hang his with the other two.
Posted by: mph at March 30, 2009 6:18 PM
Thanks mph! The portraits have been one of the most satisfying art projects I've done. It really makes me happy to know that they'll become a part of your family history. (Especially being something that Ben will grow up with…)
Posted by: sven at March 31, 2009 2:43 PM
Glad you like 'em, Shells -- you're welcome to steal the technique.
The one thing I'd do differently, were I to do this again, is to use a standard sized canvas. The fact that I made the first one using scrap wood meant it was a bit of a bother figuring out how to get the other two to match each time.
Posted by: sven at March 31, 2009 2:48 PM