A portrait artist can often include things that are deeply meaningful to the client, which are not there in the reference photo. There will be something particularly meaningful about each of their t-shirts that Cheri wanted included: a shirt-patch that was not in the original photo, which tells a lot about Larry.
About the patch on her own t-shirt Cheri wrote:
“I hadn't thought about the ‘I Love to Sew’ patch for me
too thoroughly until I was reading over your paragraph about it...and it dawned on me that Larry ALWAYS encouraged me to buy more fabric, buy my "dream" machine, go shopping to get anything I wanted/needed - on sale or not - and he always drove me wherever I was going to satisfy my 'addiction'. <LOL> That's why I have 3 rooms full of fabric and sewing shit and two great machines - the last one I bought sold for $15,000 brand new and I got it for a little over $3,000 (used but very little!) from the guy who has serviced my machines for 30+ years.
Larry ”renovated" Sarah's bedroom for me after she left to get married. Turned it into a 'dream' sewing room that I've used almost every day since he finished it. Everything I asked for - he made for me - and as much as he hated (I mean H.A.T.E.D.!) painting and wallpapering - he painted the room a light blue from the middle of the wall down and a beautiful light cream color from the middle up to the ceiling - then he hung a sewing machine border of wallpaper all the way around the room - in the middle of the two colors he'd painted. He never did anything 'half assed' - he always gave it his best....so "my" room is really mine; made for me. I don't really sew without thinking about him and how he indulged my passion every chance he got.
So the ‘I Love to Sew’ patch says something about me, but even more about him.”
In real life this shirt slogan would be white. But bright white would grab your eye and take attention away from the highlights of their sparkling eyes and happy smiles. So I softened the color to make it fade into the shirt rather than pop out. Instead of white I used two shades of pink and Carmine Red (Prismacolor) which is a light red but not as light as pink. That’s Carmine Red on the bottom curve of Cheri’s shirt collar, done with pencil over the red underpainting. And there’s some in her lips. You’ll notice that Carmine Red looks quite different in those 3 different places. On her lips against the pale colors of her skin, on the collar against the darker red shirt, and in the lettering which is against an even darker, browner red. It forms the word “to” in the “I Love to Sew” lettering. Our eyes will always perceive color differently when they are surrounded by a lighter or darker or cooler/warmer/duller/brighter color.
This is how it looked in the studio working on the t-shirts.
The groups of colored pencils are on their own sheet of paper so I can pull them down toward me when I need that set, with reference swatches near each set.
Red pencils at the top left are for the folds and highlights on Cheri’s red shirt.
Pencils at the top right are for the fade-out to the grey heart-shaped vignette. Blue-greys for the transition from Larry’s blue shirt to grey, and red-browns for the transition from Cheri’s red shirt to grey.
Directly above where I’m actively working are blue pencils for Larry’s shirt and pinks for the slogan on Cheri’s shirt.
Portrait of Cheri and Larry McNealy, in progress.
🎨 Prismacolor pencil and watercolor on “Felt Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper.
20 x 24 inches.
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