Beating the Grayness of Winter

Our Studio and Winter Retreat

It has been a long winter this year. Even with spring like temperatures today, we still have the last remanent of snow huddling in the shadows of our cul-de-sac.  Norman has been house bound in the studio painting.

Of course to chase the winter blahs away he decided to paint a warm summer memory of a little yellow house that hugs the inlet waters of Swansboro, NC.

We have taken many a vacation down around the islands that hug the North Carolina coast and bump around in its many coastal towns. We have seen this house often traveling through Swansboro. The house captures that quaintness of the many little vacation cottages that dot the coastal waters.

To have a closer look at the painting click on the following link: http://www.yourpreciousportraits.com/index.php/gallery_ii/  and click on the image to enlarge it.

I will sadly miss the beach this year unless our plans change. Two of our children are getting married this year which will promise more interesting adventures.

Sweetness in a Pink Dress

Sometimes sweetness just passes your way.

Last year when Norman and I were showing his work at one of the summer festivals in Ohio, this little girl past by our tent with her parents. Norman snapped her photo as she passed by the kettle corn venders.

While reviewing the photos he took, this sugared perfection jumped out at us as great inspiration for a painting.

I love portraits of children. I am not quite sure why, but maybe because it relates to the child within all of us. The little green hat and purse with the pink flowers sweetened the image all the more.

Of course the background setting had to go. She needed another setting that would show off her sweet femininity. 

A little garden by the side walk would do nicely; as if she just skipped down the steps and checked to see if there was anything that she had forgotten before she went on her way.

I guess I am a romantic at heart. 

Come visit our children's gallery to see more of Norman Drake's portraits.

To purchase a print click on this link: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/little-girl-in-pink-dress-norman-drake.html

A Christmas Present

Creating a painting for a Christmas present is the most fun. There is that feeling of Santa, the elves and the workshop at the North Pole.

We got a call and met with a gentleman named Jeff Nicholson. He had an idea for a painting. He wanted to have a painting of all the houses he and his wife and family lived in.

This was to be a gift to his wife, Laura.

It was to be a house portrait of six houses. 

It was at the end of November and the challenge was to create a seamless portrait of the Nicholson homes. We brainstormed with Jeff and came up with the idea of "Nicholson Road" with their most recent house to be more prominent.

Needless to say, it was like doing six house portraits as one and all in time for Christmas!

We ended up finishing the painting late Christmas Eve just in the "St. Nick" of time.

Here is a close up of part of the painting to see more detail.


Because of the unusual layout, the painting ended up to be four feet long and sixteen inches high.
To see more of the painting, click on the following link: http://www.yourpreciousportraits.com/index.php/gallery/house

Jeff emailed us Christmas day that Laura loves the painting.
We aim to please!

Thanks Jeff for the exciting challenge!

Maria: from Black and White to Color

Maria's children and grandchildren asked her for a good picture of her. Maria soon discovered that she didn't have many good pictures. She had passport pictures, but not much else. 

She did discover a 2"x 3" black and white photo taken of her many years ago. 

She was 18. 

It wasn't much, but she asked Norman if he could come up with something.

Knowing her coloring, that is eye, hair, and skin coloring, is key to creating a painting from a black and white photo. She also gave us an old passport photo for color reference.

We liked the old black and white which captured not only her youth, but had a sense of beauty and romance not found in the passport picture.

Maria comes to life!

So much richer than the tiny black and white wallet sized photo warn with time.

Now she has a beautiful portrait; an heirloom to pass on to her family.

The beauty of it being digital is she can obtain more than one copy and request size changes.

See Maria in our gallery:

http://www.yourpreciousportraits.com/index.php/gallery/family/

Finding Inspiration for a Portrait

Sometimes when one selects a photo for Norm to do a portrait all the ingredients aren't there. After all a photo does not capture the magic let alone catches us at our best. 

My friend wanted a portrait of her daughter with her cat.

Well she had the photo of her daughter with the cat. But after looking at the photo, she decided that the portrait would look better if her daughter was not wearing glasses or a bandana.

So she gave Norm a second photo of her daughter to show him what she looked like without her glasses and bandana that she wore in the first photo.

This helped Norman to know the person better when illustrating them for a portrait.

Mission accomplished!

 Norman added her mom's favorite color of green to the background using the plaid shirt as the inspiration for the overall color look. The color of the T shirt was changed to show of the cats upper body that gets lost in the first photo. It also works well with the colors in her plaid shirt, and suggestions of that color are added to the background to pull the color palette of the painting together.

Here is another example of what can be accomplished by the use of more than one photo.

Happy Birthday to Pat Torok

Deb Dougherty had seen us at the Lakewood Arts Festival. After seeing some of Norms portraits, Deb started to come up with an idea for her Mom's 80th birthday. Deb and her siblings wanted to do something very special.

Deb and her sister Mary came over to brainstorm a couple of ideas for a painting for her mom. Combing through their family pictures the sisters realized that it would be great to have a portrait of their mom and dad together.

 This was the photo they liked.

They liked the expression of their dad. It captured his sense of humor and his coffee mug that was usually in his hand. But Deb and Mary soon realized that their mother's eyes were closed. Deb reported that she usually complained when the camera captured her that way. At first we worked to paint the eyes opened but it seemed unnatural. Something else was not working.

So we asked for more pictures.  Deb brought us several more. So we out of the second group of pictures we picked this one.

Deb assured me this photo was a good capture of how her mom looked.

Well she even had the same earrings.

 Using the two above photos for reference, Norman came up with the following painting for Pat's birthday.

Here is a portrait of Art and Pat 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

 with love from Deb, Mary, Michael, Chris, Joe and Katie

We thank Deb and her family for this wonderful opportunity of doing their parents portrait.

Hope to See You There!

For the Love of Painting

When Norman isn't working on a clients portrait, he works on his own stuff. 

The blossoms on our magnolia tree were so beautiful this past spring I asked Norman to photograph the tree. The blossoms seem to last only but a week and then the leaves take over. So it was a nice surprise to find that Norman decided to paint them later. Now I can have a bit of my favorite part of spring all year long.

Here Norman did a painting of salt and pepper shakers that stood out of the clutter on our kitchen table. I was amazed how such everyday items could make a fun painting. The shakers look quite formidable here and seem to have a personality all of there own.

This is his most recent work. After Norman did a house portrait for a client he work on this one that was inspired by one of the many lake cottages in the quaint resort town of Lakeside, Ohio.

Since many of these interim paintings are not the direct result of work that he does for Your Precious Portraits, he now has another website: http://norman-drake.artistwebsites.com where you can find prints of his work for sale.

The nice thing about this site is that you not only can purchase a print, but you can choose size, paper, format, mat color, and what kind of framing. You also can purchase greeting cards of his work as well.

If your in the mood to shop check us out at: http://fineartamerica.com/shop/norman-drake.html

Portrait Celebrates 50th Wedding Anniversary

T H E   G R O U D L E   H O U S E

 Home of Sandy and Glen Groudle

To celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Sandy and Glenn Groudle, David and Tim Groudle and their wives Heather and Sue, got together to commission a home portrait for their parents. The family knew that Sandy always wanted a painting of the family home. A home of many happy memories. 

So here is their gift to their loving parents and in-laws. To Sandy and Glen Groudle:

HAPPY 50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!

The Beauty of the Cleveland Metroparks

One of the things that impressed me upon moving to Cleveland many years ago was the richness and beauty of the Cleveland Metroparks. I forgot about this painting Norman did, until we adding some prints to sell for the Art Festivals we are participating in over this summer.

This is of the Rocky River near the Lorain Bridge. It always amazing me that such a serene place exists below the clutter of homes, highways, traffic and strip malls of Cleveland and its suburbs.