I recently finished a portrait of the third daughter of a friend of mine, and it's turned into yet another opportunity to observe my changing styles...
Here was the first one I did, in 2012:
A year later, I did then-baby-sister:
And here's number 3, at about the same age:
I did try to match the color schemes and brushwork to a certain extent, but paintings are like rivers and you can never step in the same one twice.
As I worked on this last one, I loved seeing the obvious resemblence in the youngest sister to her older siblings, even though each of them have their own sweet and distinct spirit. Catching a particular subject, at a moment in their development, at a moment in my development -- the painting is bound to reflect that, too.
That's the magic trick of portaiture for me: I never set out to capture a personality, I am only concerned with light and shape and color. The expression, the individual, the life force is already there.
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