When I met Alyssa she was just 9 years old and quite the skater. Her mother, singer and writer Raven Kane, was doing everything that she could to be the good mom and help her daughter to reach her goals. Difficult for any mother to get up at 4:30 in the morning, she took her to skating rinks an hour or two away to the best instructors. Raven and Alyssa’s father, David Campbell (arranger, composer, conductor with over 450 platinum albums) were accustomed to the life of Hollywood musicians with evening schedules. Yet, their daughter had a passion, and they made it possible, no matter what. Thus a child oil portrait of her skating was the indispensable memory that was to be recorded of this phase of her life.
Gerry & I travelled up the mountain to Lake Arrowhead, California, the location of Alyssa’s training rink. She and her mother met us there. I didn’t waste any time and started by taking pictures of her getting ready. (The one donning her skates was too good not to paint, so later I made a 9×12 oil of that just as an aside.) Then she went out onto the ice and warmed up before she showed off with her graceful poses. Of course I tried to shoot her from the edge so as not slip flat on my you-know-what, but that meant Alyssa had to approach me, do something spectacular very quickly and then turn around and scram before she landed on the cement siding. It was challenging, it was exciting, it was funny, it was cold! The skaters’ world….
The painting didn’t get done for a year and a half (due to the jobs I had to finish ahead of it). When I was getting close, Raven, who had become a friend of mine, suggested that I photograph Alyssa’s face newly because she was so much happier now. We did that and she definitely had a new glow. Using this new reference of a 10-1/2 year old and I blended the happiness of it into the 9-year-old face.
When it was done it was hung in the music room—the pulse of the house—near the grand piano. Raven phoned and I thank phone machines for their indelible memories: “Everybody just loves the portrait. We sat and looked at it for hours. I keep going back just to hang out and look at it more.” Then David told me, “The textures in it give the entire image life.”
Related Posts:
- Custom Oil Portrait: Mother & Child
- Children Oil Portraits: Beach Buddies
- Children Oil Portraits: The Skater
- Children Oil Portraits: The Trampoline Twins
- Portrait Oil Painting Technique Salutes Masters
- Children Oil Portraits: Two Little Angels
- Children Oil Portraits: Is there a best age to portrait children?
- Children Oil Portraits for Mother’s Day
- Portrait Oil Painting in Brown and White Tones
