A Wedding Present

I'm ashamed to say it's the first painting I've made in almost a year...

Bonnie's eldest son, Ben, was in Thailand with his girlfriend, Christine, some years back, and took a photo of a market there. A large chunk of that photo is below on the right.




Ben and Christine got married last weekend, so a couple of weeks back I went looking for something to paint to give them for a present. I found the market photo, and it seemed like a good subject. Lots of color, sort of unusual, and something that meant something uniquely to them. Two weeks ago I sketched it out, right on the canvas. I tried not to be too exact—-I didn't use a grid or anything. It was more like doing a Grad Nite portrait. Took about two hours to sketch out. I did it in pencil first, then inked in the lines. I found a pigment pen lying around the house, and figured maybe I could draw with it and paint right over it. Sure enough, it worked. Unlike ink, the pigment didn't bleed through the paint.

Over the next week I found a couple of evenings to paint, which fortunately seemed to be enough. I pulled the photo image into Photoshop and painted from it. Very cool! I could zoom in on just the right section, enlarged to just the right size.

I presented it to the newlyweds at their reception last Saturday. They said it was particularly appropriate, because that market was where Ben proposed to Christine.

Before I let it out of my hands, I scanned the painting in a quarter at a time, right on the old flatbed scanner, and then put the quarters together in Photoshop. Comparing the painting and the photo side by side on the same monitor, it was startling how close some of the painting was to the photo, while other parts were quite different. But you can see for yourself.