ANATOMY OF A PORTRAIT COMMISSION
This 2003 commission is an important work that illuminates my portrait painting process. After an initial meeting in which the family reviewed my portfolio and decided to go ahead with a commission, we discussed the style and feeling of a portrait my new clients were hoping to achieve. They wanted a casual yet classic look, a summer feeling, they liked the idea of the kids in their backyard at the end of a sunny day, and they decided to put their dog in the painting. We set up a second meeting where the kids were dressed for a shoot and I spent an hour taking a hundred and thirty pictures. As I work with numerous references I find it most important that my subjects look relaxed and natural, so I keep my shoots as fun, quick and informal as possible. Satisfied with my reference material, I returned to my studio, plugged the camera into my computer and created a composition working from fifteen or twenty of the images I had taken. The painting took several months and over one hundred hours to paint. With the exception of an eye color change that took one minute, the Lucianis were very pleased and the painting has now found its home with some of my new collectors.