Portrait painting of a toddler girl – a work in process

I am taking a welcome break from painting the 12 Kalis and instead working on a commissioned portrait painting of a cute toddler girl. It feels more lighthearted to paint a portrait and not to be focusing so deeply on the meaning of life and death, hahaha.

To prepare the portrait and to I transfer the photo to a sketch and onto the canvas I tried a new technique this time. Remembering that I can transfer my computer screen over to a larger TV screen via apple-TV I thought why not use that to create a kind of light box. I had to transform the picture into a movie that I could then play thru apple-TV onto the larger screen and pause while I could sketch the photo from the TV thru the transfer paper as if it was a lightbox. Then the sketch went onto the canvas in the traditional way. I had to tweak the size a bit until it fit but the TV worked really well as a lightbox that way.

See photos of the process below… to be continued.

I was hoping to finish the portrait before leaving for our trip to LA but then I was requested to take the hair out of her eye. So I will finish it when I get back. And I already have another commission for a portrait of a little girl coming up… they are so much fun!