The Sports Watch (Denton)

by Godfrey J. Ellis – 16×18 Acrylic July 2021

This painting is another in my series of missionaries assigned to our area. Here he is pointing to a scripture that is his guide to providing the service that he does and has great meaning for him. I thought it would be fun to include the actual reference and page number. The photo showed his sports watch, which pleased him greatly and was the deciding factor in choosing this photo out of the several I took to paint. I decided to call this painting, “The Sports Watch” for that reason. It gave me a challenge to paint, that’s for sure, but no more than the open quad and the smaller than usual name badge.

This photo show him holding his painting. He was pleased with how it came out.

Below are three photos of stages of the portrait as it took shape. My original idea was to have him more-or-less floating with his arm and hands forming a sort-of matte around the painting. However, Merry and he convinced me to give him legs and a chair. The minimalist background of green/blue was to ground the head and bring out the skin color since green is the complement of pink/red.