Portrait from Black and White Photo

Above is a portrait commission I recently presented to a client. The first image is the main reference photo, a scan of a black and white photograph. Since this is a posthumous portrait, I relied on more recent photographs of the subject and also working with the client in order to get the coloring correct. This was a challenging but very rewarding experience, and I am thrilled that the client was very happy with the result.

Update on My Portrait Commissions

My blogs have been very sporadic lately - I apologize for that, but the reason is that I am really happy to be busy with portrait commissions. I realize that this is a difficult time financially for many of us, and I feel very blessed to have work right now. So, I am devoting most of my time to these commissions in order to do my best work. I just finished one that I mentioned earlier - the client had provided me with old black and white photos from which I created a color portrait. People often ask me which colors I use for portraits, but I do not believe in formulaic methods of creating skin tones - every person has unique coloring and facial contours. For this reason, I relied on referencing some newer photos of the subject at an older age, and also worked with the client to fill in the blanks. I will post this once the portrait has been presented to and accepted by the client.

Right now I am in the planning phase of my next group of commissions, which are more straight forward in the sense that I have color photographs of the subjects. I also have a couple of portraits where I have met the subjects, which is always my preference.