I hope you are all keeping well...it's finally starting to get a little colder now and it's not so difficult to think that Christmas isn't all that far away!
I thought I would go through with you how the process starts, from when you first contact me and I ask you to send me some photos and you send me your favourite photo........... something like this........
From this great start we will try to work on the size, position of the
subject, (shall we call him Jake?), and also what colour background you'd like? The photo has a very busy background which you may feel detracts from Jake.
First I take it into Photoshop and take away the back ground. This is what we have.......You may like that clean, simple background or you may want a colour for the custom pet portrait. Some people choose a colour that suits the decor of the room that the hand painted pet portrait is going into, some just choose a colour they like or looks good with Jake.
So, we go back into Photoshop and play around with colours for the background.....
If you don't like a white background maybe a black or dark background will look good. This works particularly well for photos that have strong side light.
Or maybe you'd prefer a colour? Would you like solid background colour or a mottled/cloudy effect of some sort?
Once a colour is decided, we have to decide on whether we want a rectangular 'A' size (as above) or square (as below). And then how big do you want Jake on the page? Big or small?
All of these decisions can be discussed and gone through step by step, in your own time, until we know exactly what you'd like! then it's just down to putting that onto paper for you.....the Dog portrait that you always wanted! And it works exactly the same for Cat portraits, or whatever animal it is you have asked me to paint.
I hope that this has given you an idea of how it all starts......
Take care for now!
Lynda