The Embrace (Ellis)

by Godfrey J. Ellis – 12×16 Acrylic June 2020

In late Spring, Merry asked that I paint the wedding portraits of our sons as well as our own. Whaaat! That sounded overwhelming, to say the least. Nevertheless, I took on the challenge. The wedding of Steve and April was one of the first wedding portraits that I completed. Part of the difficulty is that their wedding was 20 years earlier and they looked different back then. The best reference photo that we owned had been cut by a pair of scissors for a scrapbook (see below). Capturing April’s resemblance was the most difficult part of this project.

Here is a photo of the two, now 24 years later, holding the painting of their wedding in 1997.

Below are two early versions of the painting. As you can see, the earliest only suggested the temple background. Merry and I decided to make the Seattle Temple a larger feature of the portrait. That version also faded out the dark corner of the suit. After some fellow artists warned it look as if the painting had molded and mildewed (oops!), I decided they were right and painted the suit right to the corner. The second version has marks of parts that still needed attention.