More Prep Work

I did some prep work for a different future painting today. I took this picture of my father up in the U.P. back in 2018, and have always meant to do a portrait of him based on this photo. I just haven’t gotten around to it before this. But I saw the photo in my favorites/to paint folder again recently, and thought I might give it a brief try today. as you can see from the photo, I’m missing his arm, and everything below about his knees, and I like the idea of the painting being a full-length portrait, so I’m gonna have to use my imagination and judgement to try and fill in the parts that are missing. This sketch is my first attempt at that. With actual information missing, I’ll probably need a few more sketches to get the placement right, and more specific sketches for the feet and hands. And while I like the background, I’d like to incorporate a bit more of the place we were at - Kitchi-iti-kipi - in the background. Possibly in the top right where the image is a bit blown out right now. So I’ve got my work cut out for me. But I’ll slowly pick away at the prep-work between other paintings and sketches that I do, and maybe eventually we’ll get to a full painting for this one.

-ZR