Featured Pencil Portrait

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Sometimes, people in separate photographs can be successfully combined.

Couple's portrait, drawn from two separate photographs.

Portraits are nice romantic gifts for Valentine's Day, or just because!

 

This drawing was done using two separate photographs as artist reference. You can see the reference photos below the finished pencil portrait. Please scroll all the way down to the end of this page if you would like to read the full story of the creation of this artwork.

Visit www.DarlaDixon.com for more information

Valentine pencil portrait anniversary couple drawn

separate reference photos for pencil portrait

Here are the two separate photographs I used as portrait drawing reference. 
 
They did not have a photo of the two of them together during their first years of dating, so a pencil portrait drawn from the photos filled this need.
 
They are good looking people apart, but even nicer together!

drawing pencil scetch layout

After the client emailed me the reference photos, I did a rough (very rough!) ink sketch of how I envisioned the layout.
 

When I did the artwork, I had to keep in mind that the lighting in the two photos was different. Highlights in their eyes were on different sides and the shadows, dark, and light areas were opposites because of this.
 
I made adjustments...as you can see from the rough sketch, I originally planned to move her eye direction but ended up moving the direction of both their eyes a little bit, so they would be looking in the same direction.
 
So this makes the likenesses a bit 'off,' if you are wanting to see perfect photorealism, but I think in the end it does make the portrait better overall that the subjects look in the same direction as if they were originally together in the portrait. 
 
I added shadows also that were not in the original reference photos, because for example, her hair would cast a shadow on his shoulder.  

Here is another portrait where two photographs were combined:

drawing from two photographs combined

Darla Dixon, Artist

Darla Dixon Portrait Art & Illustration


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