The children of friends invited us to help them celebrate their parents’ (lets call the Sally and Harry) 25th Anniversary. I wanted to make it special so I thought – “I know – I will paint their wedding picture”. I asked the daughter to send a picture and this is what I got – pretty dark. Of course my ambition was greater than my ability so I marked the actual anniversary with mugs (like the royal wedding – no?)…
To get started (after the party) I sketched the approximate layout that I had in mind using pencil and paper then transferring it to my 50 x 70 cm canvas. I had planned some religious symbolism, including a three-legged stool to denote the three pillars upon which the world stands (from Ethics of Our Fathers). The stool was in and out of the picture several times but eventually out because I couldn’t stop making it look as if it was floating in the air. Conversely, the challenge with the tallit was to make it look as if it was floating in the air and not mounted on the wall.
I started with their faces but really had trouble with it because of the hair. I could not picture what was in all those dark shadows. Eventually, after false starts I casually sneaked a look at another of Sally’s wedding photos and asked her to describe her hair. You can see the progression. Thank goodness for white paint. Harry’s face was half missing and his nose had a serious twist to the left, but once I got the hair right, his face was able to be fixed as well.
At this stage I had also finished Sally’s dress. It was fun to do. At first I thought it probably had a pink tinge, so I painted a pink undercoat with white overlay. Then I changed my mind and decided that it was really more of a blue tinge, so I painted a coat of blue with a white overcoat. In the end it leans to blue but has some subtle pink highlights. I had a bit of trouble with the lace on the left breast but eventually got it to come out OK. In all I was happy with the dress. The hands in the photograph are dark and obscured so they took me many starts. At least they came out looking somewhat like hands.
After I painted Harry’s suit I painted the veil. I am particularly proud of the veil (see it on the finished picture). I used the same wash-of-white technique to do the table-cloth (also see finished picture)
Once I had the dress right I started on the background, beginning with the window. Simple whimsey made me choose a heavy stone archway. The background is supposed to be our red-roofed village on the next hill over from the tall hill with the fire tower on it. I also started to fill the shelves of the oft-changed bookshelf. Originally I was going to have 25 books for each year of marriage, but they would have had to be too big. As it is I have 33 books. In their real life living room is a similar bookshelf jam-packed with books. It was important for me to recognize their life-long Torah study. The candles are four, one for each of their children. The candlestick “tree” has five brances, again representing their children and including their informally fostered teenage son. There are 25 leaves on the candlestick – guess what they represent. The top shelf of the bookcase has all the observant Jewish paraphernalia. I used a fine brush but not with any great success. The kiddush cup base looks like it’s melting off the shelf like one of Dali’s clocks. I used silver paint and silver glitter on the candlesticks and silverware, but it was not successful. The silver was only seen if the canvas was turned to catch the light.
| This is the finished painting. I hope you like it. I had it hidden for about 3 months before I got the courage to give it to my friends. Sally was thrilled with it; Harry thought I made him look too swarthy. They have probably hidden it under their bed 🙂 |
I wrote this post six years ago. To our sorrow, after two years of brave struggle, Harry passed away from brain cancer earlier this year (2021). May his memory be for a blessing.