From a 4″x6″ photograph, to a 4.17’x6′ painting of T&K!
In the spring of 2016, I was contacted by a client who wanted me to create a larger than life portrait of her and her dog together. Her dog had recently passed away, and she wanted to have a special memento of her time with her beloved companion of many years. She sent me a variety of photos and an approximate scale she wanted for the artwork, and after chatting about which photo and size would work best we decided on a 50″x72″ canvas!! This is the largest canvas I’ve ever worked on, as the majority of my Pet Portrait orders are under 12″x12″. Before this the largest painting of a person I’d done was for Xmas 2015 of a girl with her dog on a 18″x18″ canvas (that piece can be viewed HERE). Also, this piece is only my 6th ever painting of a person too! But my client trusted in me, and I believed I could create the piece she was after, so we confirmed all the details & went forward.
I knew going in that this would be a challenging project, but I was ready to take it on. Since the 50″x72″ canvas was far larger than anything I’d undertaken to date, the timeline was a bit of a guessing game. My initial estimation was to have it completed by the end of summer, but it became apparent very quickly that the closer to the end it came, the more time it took because of the level of detail and surface area involved. And instead of rushing it to meet an estimated timeline, my client and I both agreed that taking the proper time needed was the way to go. The painting was completed at the end of Fall, and was delivered home to Vancouver in early December, which was super a exciting day of course!
(Above is a photo of the delivery man whisking the painting away. If you are having trouble viewing it you can see it on Instagram HERE.)
I worked on this painting for approximately 6 months, and once it was picked up and I went back in my studio it definitely felt strange to not have it in there any more lol! It’s always weird how that works. My client had asked that I not share progress pictures while I worked the piece, which is why it was so hush hush on my social media. But I’m super excited to share now what I was working on for half of the year!
This piece did challenge me, and the sheer size of it and time involved seemed intense at times. I definitely did learn a lot with it, but the main goal of course was to create the painting that my customer had wanted. And in the end she is happy with it, and that’s what it’s really all about! This is the note she sent me when she received her painting:
“It is full of warmth and happiness… Thank you for creating something that I will treasure all my life.” – K
That right there is the cherry on top for me 🙂
I’ve been painting custom artwork for about 10 years now, and I never would have predicted that I would get to paint a piece like this! This one definitely feels like a once in a lifetime project. But I guess only time can tell on that one, because you just never know 😀 .
And for fun, here are a couple detail shots from the painting:
And one more, with me in it for scale purposes:
To view a full image of this painting, please visit my People Portraits portfolio page.
