Another from the archives - Oscar a posthumous portrait

Oscar had passed away the year before and Natalie & Michael wanted a portrait to remember him by. The best photo we had was of Oscar when he was the ring bearer at their wedding. Often when you have a photo taken from a distance and you enlarge it the quality isn't good enough to use ( blurry ) but luckily with Oscar the photo was. I had to straighten the photo and add his feet as they were cut off. Luckily we had other photos that helped with that.
I was to place Oscar in the setting of their backyard so I got them to take some photos of the area they wanted and then I had to choose an area that would be typical of the yard but would suit the portrait and not overwhelm Oscar. I also had to ensure the scale was correct so that the rock ledge would look as it did if Oscar was actually sitting there.I was to take the collar that held the ring off him.
Here is the reference material and the finished portrait.

Reference photo

Setting

Oscar

40 x 50cms

Framed Oil

" Thank you Sue, so much for my beautiful painting, it means more to me that I can put into words. Even though you never actually met Oscar you have still managed to capture his personality. To quote my friend Kym, who came with me to collect the painting, “You haven’t just painted a picture of a pet Australian Blue Cattle Dog, you’ve painted Oscar’.

Natalie