Sweet, a little bit shy, and still in wonder at the world. Celeste is a little girl full of life.She came over to sit for a portrait sketch the other day, and left me with a few adorable photos to work into a full drawing. I choose this one of her blowing dandelion seeds because it just captured the essence of childhood for me.
I then zoomed in on the face and upper body for the pencil drawing. It was not an easy pose, I did about 8 sketches that all made their way to the trash! …but it was worth the effort.
Celeste’s mother wanted to use this for her First Communion invitations, and we both agreed that it needed color!! So a little Photoshop was in order. I used the original photo as a color overlay, which worked pretty well for most of the features, and was especially fun because it allowed me to see how close my drawing was to the original. I then used a transparent brush over the details that were missing. Also at this stage, I removed the greys from the background and added a slight transparency to the entire image.
I then created a double-sided Invite in Adobe Illustrator. Celeste’s mother said that she wanted a romantic design, possibly on pink paper with gold letters. After toying with many options, we decided on this for the front side (I haven’t included the back for privacy reasons).
To my great pleasure, Celeste left our portrait sitting feeling inspired. She’s been working on portraits of her own. Love it! This is what makes it all worthwhile…
