Sunday, December 15, 2013

Custom Portrait for Christmas

How do you design a portrait for a client that has no photos?
I've woven many tapestry portraits and the process usually follows a familiar format.

The client sends me a variety of photos. We talk about the personalities of the people, clothes they might wear, hair style, earrings, flashy or conservative, turtleneck or button down, and we discuss it until we get it right.

This time it was different. Clear photos of her two close friends were difficult to find and I couldn't get a clear idea of what the couple looked like. Once we both realized another approach was needed the design process opened up and we quickly settled on her friends' love of biking in the Fingerlakes area of Upstate New York.

All that remained were the details (her favorite color is pink) and the background (mountains will be in the distance) and I was ready to weave.

The piece will be ready for Christmas.
And don't worry, I made sure they were wearing bike helmets.
Biking on the Fingerlakes, 3 1/2 x 9 inches
Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. AngieJanuary 10, 2014 at 11:59 AM

    Very interesting, Ruth! I really enjoyed the discussion of your process to create a portrait without the usual input. Hope to see you again soon at Tuesday weaving.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ruth ManningJanuary 12, 2014 at 4:45 PM

    Thanks for visiting my blog Angie, these portraits are a lot of fun to do. I look forward to getting back to Tuesday weaving. In the meantime I'll keep working and perhaps have some results to show you!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)