Esther: Part 1

I snapped this photo of my friend Rachel's daughter Esther when they were visiting this summer, and I'm getting ready make an oil painting of it. To me this image is irresistable - the hat, her sly look, the bright colors - I have to paint it. So I've never done this before, but I'm taking photos of each step of the process and I'm going to post them here.

1) The original

2) Cropped to fit a long narrow canvas, which seemed to suit this compostion

3) Black and white

4) In photoshop, removing some of the unnecessary elements, the cross, the cup, the table in the background

5) Changed to outlines in photoshop so I can print what I'm going to sketch. This makes it so much easier!

6) Added my grid

7) My actual rough sketch on the canvas. It's pretty light.

8) In photoshop, I removed the stripes from the shirt, changed it to green, and manipulated the background color. I also adjusted the shadows and highlights. All this could be done when I'm in the painting process, looking at the orginal, but I prefer to get it right in photoshop, print it out, then just paint what I see.

Next step - PAINT! Stay tuned for more.