"Kathy's Girls" (Diptych) 2012, 15x30 cm
The Brief
The client had admired a watercolour pair I had done of my two children, and wanted something similiar to celebrate her two daughters. So the brief was: stylised portraits of the two girls that caught them in a mood, enjoying the Adriatic coastline, painted in the reverse glass technique. Thinking ahead I suggested a diptych arrangement - where the overall size of the painting was divided in half to create two paintings that could be hung together in the family home, yet easily stand alone so that they might move with the girls into the future. As the sketch evolved the off-set borders allowed me to play more with the wave lines - so that the resulting pieces are most definitely both one painting, and two. I also set the girls doing things they enjoyed (one is sketching and one, reading) and made sure to get their favourite colours and the right hairstyles matched up appropriately. It was not a large commission, but it was a hugely satisfying one.