The original picture was taken about a year and a half ago when we went to Australia. We spent a few days in Brisbane where we took the kids to places like the Australia Zoo, Seaworld, and Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (we highly recommend this sanctuary since not only can you hold the Koalas, you can also feed the kangaroos and they come right up to you and let you pet them!) We spent a couple of days in Sydney, and of course we had to hit the typical tourist attractions, e.g. the Sydney Opera House.
I kept the background, the opera house, the ocean water, rather loose using bigger strokes. With the two faces, I tried to do the "flemish" technique where I painted the faces black and white first, let it dry, and then put on a color layer.
The color on the faces were not simple, especially with the shadows. As the picture was taken roughly at noon, the sun was shining right down at the face. The part of the face that's in shadow, but faced upward actually got a cooler shadow as the color of the sky was reflect there, where as the part of the face that's in shadow but facing down got a reflection from the red jacket and thus a warm shadow.
This painting passed the "Heidi" test, as she actually recognized who were in the painting, so I figured I couldn't have been too far off.
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