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Forensic Portraiture
Being commissioned by a close friend of the family to paint a 51 year old woman who died from breast cancer from a small 1.5 x 3 photo is a job Tom was made to do. Recently he had started using a digital mannequin program in his portrait work, the job was made easier.

Although the program is very tedious lighting the figure, it paid off handsomely because the program used the same cone, sphere, square shaded shapes from grade school.

Tom first carefully traced the face from the original photo, mapping the simple edges. Then he projected it onto the prepared canvas with pencil. After refining the lines he had prints made to send to the client. In this case the client wanted the hands making the portrait larger because Tom wanted to work life-size.

Lori, pencil on canvas, 24" x 30"

With the approved sketch, painting the face started.

After several days, Tom took photos of himself to fill in the nuances of the shadows. Lighting the scene with real lights was a shoe in after the tedious and still ineffective digital figure. Tom posed in the figures' pose. It was extremely effective.

Wednesday December 4, 2007

Portrait of Lori
24" x 30", oil on canvas, December 5, 2007
Painted posthumously from a small photo. The figure was recreated in a
digital mannequin program as well as the artist posing under arranged lights.
The artist has worked for the Salisburys since 1980. The process of the painting is
to prepare a fine line drawing "the cartoon" on the gessoed canvas.
The gesso is applied with a palette knife scrapping the gesso carefully
until all signs of the weave of the canvas is gone. Once the location of the hands
and face are decided that area is scrapped with a razor blade making it extra
smooth. Painting takes place by mixing three pigments together to make the
various shades. Yellows mixed with violets with a little red for the flesh.
The texture of the paint is created by stippling the surface with a brush that is
cut off. The artist also uses rubber tipped brushes to remove paint revealing the
light of the canvas which the artist uses as white. Only in select places does the
artist use white in places like the highlight of the skin.

Tuesday December 3, 2007

Sunday December 2, 2007

Thursday November 29, 2007

Lori, pencil on canvas, 20" x 24"

This is the composite image assembled from the photos supplied.

First Day

Second Day

Wednesday November 28th, 2007

 

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