Julie

One of the many projects I'm working on at the moment is this portrait commission. Portraiture is one of my true loves, but this one came with some challenges. First it is a posthumus portrait, so I'm working from references and not from life. I'm also working from less than ideal references— lots of flash and poor lighting.

To make things even more tricky the one good reference of Julie was while her cancer was in a remission phase. Her hair was short and the patrons didn't want to remember her this way.

So, I put on my photographer/photoshop hat and spent some time working up usable references. But by far the most valuable resource was Marianne, Julie's daughter, who spent some time sharing with me who her mother was in life.

Armed with this knowledge I was able to really concentrate on giving the portrait personality and hopefully allow anyone who didn't know Julie to have an insight into the special person she was.

Portraiture and character design are first cousins to illustration for me...it is and always will be about "telling the story".


Thank you Julie for letting me help tell your story. Our loss is most certainly Heaven's gain.