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Maddie & Saffie
So after my first effort with Lara I wanted to also do one of my other two gorgeous grand daughters. This posed many challenges as I could only use an existing photo and not one taken specially for this purpose.
However, in the end I think I got a good likeness but nowhere near as pretty as the original
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Millie
My next door neighbour saw me working on the picture above and asked if I would do one of their little daughter Millie.
Of course I said I would be delighted.
However accepting a 'commission' changed the dynamic, as I clearly needed to please my neighbour and not just myself.
For this reason I decided to use more pixels on a bigger board in order to get more detail and be less 'abstract' as my original intentions.
Thankfully they were delighted
Rich
As Richard Saunders had helped me so much with my first effort, I was keen to show my appreciation by doing one of him.
As you an see he has a distinctive appearance, as you would expect from a dedicated surrealist artist, which is pretty ideal for making a reasonably abstracted image. I was pleased with the result and gave it to him when we next met .
He has it hanging in his summerhouse
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Self Portrait
Inevitably I wanted to do a self portrait so that i could experiment a bit more.
I was quite pleased with this as it fulfilled my original idea of being a fairly oblique likeness at first glance, but an interesting and apparent random array of coloured pixels
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Going on from that I wanted to to push the idea even further by using fewer and larger pixels.
This is the result which is perhaps a little too oblique but it pleases me
Noah
Another dear friend of mine, Richard, has a grandson named Noah and the 3 of us sometimes go for walks together.
Noah's dad Ben runs a design and web agency called prosper-agency.com
I was especially flattered when Ben sent some very nice comments on Facebook, about one of my pictures.
So I decided to do a picture of his son Noah, which he was delighted with and it is hanging in his living room
Simon
Sometimes it is hard to find a suitable photo to use.
I wanted to do a portrait of my brother Simon and the only one I could find was part of a shot of him in the pub with me and his son Peter.
I needed to crop it really tight to get the effect I wanted. .
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Joanna
My daughter Joanna was an easy choice for me to try to paint as I know what she looks like so well. Although finding a picture that suited my purpose was not easy.
Eventually I used a section of a picture taken when we went to see a Lionel Richie concert at Colchester Stadium
Once again I wanted to push this image even further and again produced a version with fewer, larger pixels.
To me this is a much more interesting result as I can still see Joanna in it although others may find it difficult
Andy
Andy is my son and Lara's Dad and I wanted to do one of him and his wife Tanya to go with the original one of Lara.
At this stage I had not started taking photos especially for these paintings, but instead I was using those that I already had.In many cases using part of a very much larger general photo
I was looking for images that clearly showed his recognisable features as far as possible.
In this case I could have done with one that had a background that contrasted a little more with his hair
However I was able do make some small adjustment at the painting stage.
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Neil
Neil is one of my oldest friends and someone that I have lots of 'petrolhead' adventures with.
This photo was taken at the 'Ace Cafe' on the North Circular Road in London when we were attending a GTROC meet.
I liked this shot as it has some unusual colours in it, but some people find it difficult to recognise Neil, mainly because of the strong sunlight from the window
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Neil version 2
In order to produce a more easily recognised version I used another picture from a trip to Waldringfield in Suffolk where we had a very nice lunch by the river Deben
Joanna & Stuart
As the picture of my grand daughters had gone down so well I decided to do one of their Mum and Dad, my daughter Joanna and son in law Stuart.
How hard could it be to find a photo of them both smiling at the camera at the same time.
Very is the short answer.
The background didn't help much, nor did trying to get 2 likenesses out of just 12 x 16 pixels
Tanya
This has probably been the most daunting picture to attempt.
Tanya is my daughter in law and although I know her very well, I obviously do not know her as well as my own daughter.
So to produce a portrait the she likes AND has the sort of effect I am looking for, is a tall order.
Eventually I found an image that I thought was promising and went ahead.
To me it was not necessarily an exact likeness but captured her spirit I felt
This version encouraged me to have another go at an even more abstracted image using only 48 pixels, which I think works well because of the very destinct markings
Comet
Comet is my daughter's family's Border Collie who is full of fun and character.
Being so distinctively marked in black and white I decided he would be a fun subject for me.
So much so that I ended up doing a numer of versions of him, all of which I like.
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Self Portrait No 2
Having done one self portrait, in two pixel sizes, I wanted to see if I could produce one that was even easier to recognise.
What this demonstrated to me was that the selection of the original photo is absolutely crucial if you are to produce an obvious likeness.
It needs to be very closely cropped and lit with a good deal of contrast in order to pick out the main features
Stu
My son in law Stu was another tricky one as I did not have a photo with a contrasting background so defining the shape of his head was difficult.
It ended up pretty subtle but I like the overall effect, and so did he, thankfully
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