Commissioned by my Great Uncle, this painting is a collaboration between myself and my Aunt Dorothy. Dorothy took the original photograph of my Grandfather Jimmy and I created an oil painting from the photo. Dorothy is a wonderful photographer and if you would like to see more of her work her website is http://deedeeoho.blogspot.com/
This was a very challenging and rewarding portrait to paint. The two main challenges were painting the foliage with its light detail and varied depth of field and rendering a likeness of my Grandfather. Luckily while painting this I was reading “Great Women Masters of Art” by Jordi Vigue. In his historic book he gives a biography and detailed descriptions of all of the well known female artists and their paintings in western society starting from the 16th century until present. The women back then were masters at portraits and their works gave me inspiration as well as great humility.
Grandpa, 2011, oil on canvas, 30x24in, Jessica Siemens