Portrait of a Lady

Client: Self-Directed/School Projects

I went a little insane last Christmas, and decided that I needed to hand-make everyone rather involved presents. (This may or may not have been in part induced by my deep-seated fear of shopping anytime in December.) For my beloved little sister, I decided that an abstract portrait of sorts was the way to go.

Source Photo

I based the portrait on the above photograph, which I've spent so much time staring at that it’s since lost all meaning. Then I busted out Illustrator and started stylizing the lines, shapes, and shadows of her face. It ended up being quite a labour of love, as I was spending hours super zoomed-in on Jenny’s face, tweaking the curve of each eyelash and such. Luckily, she’s pretty much my favourite person in the world, so it just made me miss her more than usual.

Final Portrait

After getting the details of her face, I created a curvy tangle of hair and a sunny background. I added a little extra ice in her eyes to complement the yellow, and gave her a diamond necklace so she didn&rquo;t seem quite as decapitated without her shoulders.

The portrait, of course, took longer than expected, so I didn&rquo;t end up giving her a final version until…well, the snow had certainly melted by then. I had it printed up two feet wide, and we hung it in her living room, larger than life!

Oh, and “elephant shoe” is our sister-code for “I love you”. We usually finish telephone conversations with “elephant shoe, yellow!” “elephant shoe, red!”, which prompts anyone in the vicinity to think we’re talking in tongues.