Atelier News: another reconstruction portrait

I’m working on a new ‘reconstruction’ portrait. From time to time that comes on my path. This post is about two previous reconstructions. I write this to explain to you what I mean by ‘reconstruction portrait’: some 2 years ago I painted the portraits of two girls ‘when they were little’.

They are now in their forties and when they were 5 or 6 years old, portraits were made from their two sisters. But before it was their turn, the artist died and their parents never found another one with the same style…

Until they met me, thirty years later. With the help of lots of old photo’s (all yellowed, sepia, black and white) and interviews combined with sketching sessions with them and their parents, I ‘reconstructed’ the portraits. It was very interesting and challenging, the difficult part is of course that the input is partly from memory and descriptions and partly of photo’s of often vague and unclear quality… But I could also meet ‘the portraitees’ in real life and although they were older, their ‘colours’ were still the same.

I finished the job and the two are now in a beautiful composition with their two sisters!

The reconstruction I’m working on now – and will write about in coming posts – is even more challenging, the person I am about to paint, has passed away. Luckily I have his wife as great source of information -as well as his daughter, who looks like him.

If you want to know how it will go – keep watching this space!