It was important to Cheri to have this shirt-patch included on Larry’s shirt. When you read Cheri’s words you’ll understand why.
From Cheri:
“Above all else, Larry was about love.
He ‘liked’ things, certainly - but there really wasn't an 'in between' for him when it came to his feelings. He LOVED the Navy. If we hadn't met, I have no doubt he would have re-enlisted and served all of his life. The Navy was a 'life defining' moment for him and though he always said he had 'no regrets' about returning to civilian life - the Navy was never far from his thoughts. He was beyond proud of the time he served in Vietnam because he was a patriot.
He LOVED this country and was willing to die for it because as he said so many times, it was ‘worth it'."
There was no patch on Larry's t-shirt in the original reference photo. Cheri sent some examples from other shirts and jackets Larry wore. I wanted the shirt slogan to be faint so it wouldn’t take away from the faces. Although they are meant to look like they are printed in white lettering on the t-shirts, Cheri’s shirt patch is actually pink, and Larry’s is light blue. The effect is like “white” printing on their red and blue shirts, but the values are lower (not as bright) as the highlights on their cheeks and in their eyes, and the color of their teeth (see the picture above). That keeps the faces the primary focus, and the shirt patches secondary.
The color bar signifying Vietnam Vets in Larry’s shirt patch is actually (in real life) gold, red, and green. In the picture above, the color bar under the word NAVY appears to be those colors.
But to “fade” it into the blue shirt, gold, red, and green became grey, light purple, and turquoise. That’s because I mixed each of those colors with blue — I chose a pencil color which is as if each of those 3 colors were mixed with blue — so it wouldn’t pop out too much from the blue t-shirt.
Gold + blue = grey.
Red + blue = purple.
Green + blue = turquoise.
This is a close-up of the shirt patch, with swatches showing those 3 colors on blue, and also on grey so you can see exactly what colors they are. When I want to identify the true nature of a color, I view it on neutral grey. Any other color as a background behind a color-swatch will trick your eye, because your perception will be influenced by the way the swatch looks in relation to the background color.
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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